japan running news

by Brett Larner

Takushoku University's fortunes under its new coach Okada continue to improve. A month after Takushoku won both the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km qualifierteam and individual titles Takushoku first-years Duncan Mozay and John Maina worked together to crack 28 minutes at the Kanto Regional University Time Trials in Tokyo's National Stadium on Nov. 27. Both runners clocked 27:53, meaning they are now the fastest university runners in the Kanto region ahead of Jobu University senior Yusuke Hasegawa and Nihon University junior Benjamin Gando. Only one of the pair will be allowed to run January's Hakone Ekiden, but with two aces to choose from Takushoku is in an excellent position to make the Hakone seeded bracket.

2010 Kanto Regional 5000 m champion Taku Fujimoto (Kokushikan Univ.), fresh from a 3rd-place finish on the competitive 1st Stage of Tuesday's International Chiba Ekiden, won another of the meet's ten heats of 10000 m, pushed to a 28:41.40 by M…

by Brett Larner


Jonathan Ndiku, Kazuhiro Maeda and Martin Mukule battle in the Pro A heat.

With the ekiden season drawing to a close, jitsugyodan and university teams across Japan are in the process of finalizing their lineups for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden and the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden. Massive track time trials are common this time of year; last week JRN detailed the 199th Nittai University Time Trials meet. This week on Nov. 29 Team Konica Minolta hosted the National Long Distance Meet series of 10000 m time trials at Tokyo's National Stadium. Not a public meet in the usual sense of something publicized to attract fans, the National Long Distance Meet is in fact a day-long set of 19 heats of men's time trials, 13 for university students and 6 for jitsugyodan runners and a select few university aces, along with one 5000 m heat for university women. All 6 of the professional heats featured top Kenyans as pacemakers, most notably 2:06:16 marathoner Daniel Njenga (Team Yakult). …