japan running news

A team of recent graduates of Cambridge University made the trip to the mountains of southwestern Saitama to race the 64th running of the Okumusashi Ekiden in colder than usual weather on Jan. 28. After hearing about the top-level Izumo Ekiden from Harvard and Yale athletes who had run as part of Izumo's Ivy League Select Team, Cambridge runners Josh Carr, Matt Leach and Alex Short wanted to experience a Japanese ekiden themselves. Pulling together a team of six runners and three alternates, they settled on Okumusashi as the best option in competitive level and timing.


With a 28:45.48 best for 10000 m from Stanford last year Leach led off on the 9.9 km First Stage, facing an unusually deep field including 2018 National Men's Ekiden champion Saitama Prefecture's lead runner Ryu Hashimoto (Tokyo Nogyo Daisan H.S.),  28:17.11 man Yuki Muta and London World Championships marathon 9th placer Yuki Kawauchi. Kenyan Titus Wambua (Musashino Univ.) led in the early going before a p…

Sunday's Osaka International Women's Marathon leads the way in Japanese road action this weekend. With qualification spots in the MGC Race 2020 Olympic Trials at stake for the home field there are three main questions:

Can straight-arm specialist Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) duplicate her 2:21:36 debut in Nagoya last year after running badly at the London World Championships?Can Honami Maeda (Tenmaya), the only Japanese woman to have qualified for the MGC Race so far, run a fast marathon for real after conquering the heat to win August's Hokkaido Marathon in 2:28:48?What can last year's 10000 m national champion Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) do in her debut?Eunice Jeptoo (Kenya) tops the international list with a 2:26:13 in Eindhoven last year, with the debuting Gotytom Gebreslase (Ethiopia) the wildcard, her best mark at distance a 49:56 at last year's Utica Boilermaker 15 km. 
Osaka will be broadcast live Sunday by Fuji TV starting at noon local time. A free live …

by Brett Larner

Championship ekiden season has come and gone, but Sunday saw high-level action at two popular and long-running ekidens at opposite ends of Japan.  In western Japan, course record-setting 2015 National High School Ekiden champion Sera H.S. of Hiroshima definitively took the win at the 79th Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden, beating Mazda, Chugoku Denryoku, JFE Steel, Chudenko and other corporate team competition with ease.  Sera third-year Paul Kamais opened a lead of over two minutes with a course record 42:04 for the 15.1 km First Stage, and from there Sera never lost the top position.  Mazda came the closest, closing to within 3 seconds by the end of the Fourth Stage, but a Fifth Stage win by Sera's Taiju Nakashima put them back out front with a margin that Sera's remaining two runners held onto until the end.  Sera covered the seven-stage, 84.4 km course in 4:07:29, the best-ever by a high school team, with Mazda ending up nearly two minutes back in 4:09:24.  Chugoku…

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2015/01/26/kiji/K20150126009696350.html

translated by Brett Larner

With lingering effects from a sprained ankle, civil servant runner Yuki Kawauchi (27, Saitama Pref. Gov't) sat out the Jan. 25 Okumusasahi Ekiden where he had won the Fourth through Sixth Stages over the last three years.  Kawauchi was scheduled to run the Second Stage this year, but he is still experiencing pain from spraining his left ankle in late December.  "I haven't done real training in almost a month," he said.  "This is the first time I've had an injury last this long since I started working."

Despite not running Kawauchi was busy behind the scenes, carrying a Saitama Prefectural Government banner and cheering on runners from his high school, Kasukabe Higashi H.S., from the side of the road with a loud and enthusiastic voice.  He indicated that he still plans to run the Feb. 1 Saitama Ekiden next week, saying, "I want to be out there som…

by Brett Larner

National championship ekiden season may be through, but across the country smaller regional and local ekidens continue.  Biggest among the dozen or so noteworthy ekidens this weekend was the 77th running of the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden.  A moderate-length event at 7 stages and 84.4 km, Chugoku Yamaguchi featured six top corporate league teams from the central Japan region along with local universities and clubs.  Despite a one-two punch of 2012 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Joseph Gitau (Kenya) and former Sera H.S. star Charles Ndirangu (Kenya) the JFE Steel team could not hold off rivals Mazda, the lead turning over twice during the course of the race before Mazda anchor Kenji Yamamoto, a member of Toyo University's 2012 Hakone Ekiden course record-setting team, ran down JFE Steel's Yuki Moriwaki to give Mazda the win by 20 seconds in 4:08:54.  Chugoku Denryoku, the top-ranked team in the region after finishing 5th at the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden, was on…

http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Tn201301280004.html
http://www.komaspo.com/4210
http://mainichi.jp/area/saitama/news/20130128ddlk11050143000c.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20130127-1077441.html
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20130127-OHT1T00214.htm

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Three late-season ekidens took place this weekend.  Amid light snow in Yamaguchi, 48 teams took part in the 76th running of the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden on a 7-stage, 84.4 km course from Ube City Hall to Shunan City Hall.  In the elite division, after an exciting Sixth Stage that saw 2012 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Joseph Gitau (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) cover the 15.9 km stage in 46:11 to move his team up into 1st, Team Chugoku Denryoku retook the lead on the anchor stage and claimed its eleventh Chugoku Yamaguchi title and first in two years in a time of 4:06:44.  Saikyo High School's A team won the high school division in 4:18:58 after leading all …

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120129-896429.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

A contender for the London Olympics men's marathon team, Yuki Kawauchi (24, Saitama Pref.) had a strong run at the amateur Okumusashi Ekiden on Jan. 29 in Hanno, Saitama.  Anchoring his coworkers' Saitama Prefectural Government team, Kawauchi won the 9.283 km Sixth Stage with a time of 27:15, just four seconds off the course record, and advancing his team from 84th to 66th place.  As he ran cheers of, "Go Kawauchi!" and "The Olympics!" followed him along the course.

"The distance today was short, so I treated it as a speed workout, a time trial," Kawauchi said after the race, satisfied with his performance.  "I went out hard and tried to catch people who were slowing down, then in the second half I tried to hang on.  It was a good run."

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/event/sports/news/20120109-OHT1T00005.htm
http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/120108/spg1201081654000-n1.htm
http://www.daily.co.jp/newsflash/2012/01/08/0004729613.shtml

translated and edited by Brett Larner

In his first race of the year, Olympic marathon hopeful Yuki Kawauchi (24, Saitama Pref.) finished 2nd in 1:06:19 at the 13th Mari Tanigawa Half Marathon behind winner Kazuyoshi Tokumoto (32, Team Nissin Shokuhin) who ran 1:05:36.  Kawauchi declared the performance a good shakeout in the buildup to his bid for the London Olympic team at the Feb. 26 Tokyo Marathon.

Two years ago Kawauchi won the Mari Tanigawa Half Marathon in 1:06:49, and last year he was 3rd in 1:06:40.  This time, running into a strong headwind in the second half of the race Kawauchi slowed, but he still held on to make the podium in his best time on this course.  "Now I've got all three kinds of medals from this race," he laughed.  "My dream is to travel to see all the ot…