japan running news

It's a rare year that there's no wind at all at the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon , and the field took advantage of it with a pack run that lasted until the very last stage of the race. It really was a race of pure attrition, steady between 2:07:15 and 2:07:30 pace as it shook down from a lead group of over 30 to just 8 by the time the last two pacers stopped at 30 km: Japanese runners Yuta Shimoda (GMO), Hironori Kishimoto (GMO), Tomoki Yoshioka (Kyudenko), Takanori Ogata (Toyota Kyushu) and Yuichi Yasui (Toyota), former Takushoku University captain Workneh Derese (Ethiopia/Hiramatsu Byoin), and internationals Ben Preisner (Canada) and Hicham Laqouahi (Morocco). Their split of 1:30:31 put Preisner 39 seconds up on Cam Levins ' 30 km NR and on track for 2:07:19, 51 seconds under the Paris Olympics qualifying time. Shimoda took over once the pacers were out, a 2:59 for the 31st km enough to get rid of Ogata and Yasui. Yoshioka was next, and just past 32 km Laquoahi dr...

The fastest Japanese man inside the qualifying window for October's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials not to have hit any of the qualifying criteria, Kento Nishi (Osaka Gas) got it done with a 2:10:01 win at the Nagano Marathon less than two months after his 2:08:11 PB at February's Osaka Marathon. Nishi, Kensuke Horio (Kyudenko) and Kenji Yamamoto (Mazda) all needed to run in the mid-2:11 range to qualify via the two-race sub-2:10 average route, and when 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Michael Githae (Suzuki) took the race out on mid-2:10 pace it was exactly what they could have hoped for. Githae did all the work as others in range of qualifying like Reo Kuniyuki (Otsuka Seiyaku), Shogo Kanezane (Chugoku Denryoku) and Daisuke Hosomori (YKK) dropped off the lead pack. A surge from Horio after halfway cut the lead group down to just Githae, the three qualifying hopefuls, and Yamamoto's teammate Shun Sadakata (Mazda), and it stayed that way until Githae attack...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/hakone-ekiden/2017/feature/20161222-OYT8T50092.html translated by Brett Larner Tokai University 's Shonan campus features a "low pressure chamber."  With 20 cm-thick walls it is like a room on a submarine.  In preparation for the Hakone Ekiden, twice a week the school's athletes work out in the chamber on running machines and other equipment.  According to  Tamotsu Terao , professor of exercise physiology at Tokai University's Sports Medical Science Laboratory, the interior of the 24 square meter, 3 meter-tall room can replicate altitude conditions ranging from 0 to 4000 m, and by adjusting temperature and humidity it is also simulate a variety of weather conditions.  "By setting it to 3000 m you create a situation that replicates running at Mt. Fuji's eighth stage," said Prof. Terao.  It is said that training in a low pressure, low oxygen environment increases the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, which improves the...

by Brett Larner video by 7716chuo 2016 World U20 Championships men's 5000 m bronze medalist Wesley Ledama of Kenya continued his undefeated streak since arriving in Japan this summer to run for the Subaru corporate team, outrunning 2016 Ichinoseki Half Marathon winner Alexander Mutiso (Team ND Software) to win Saturday's Setagaya Time Trials 5000 m A-heat in 13:27.00, the second-best time of his career.  But with university men's ekiden season about to break at next weekend's Izumo Ekiden, the main story was to be found in the arms race brewing in the rest of the field. In 2015 Aoyama Gakuin University broke the course records at two of the Big Three University Ekidens, Izumo and the legendary Hakone Ekiden.  This year it graduated four key seniors, all Hakone stage winners, but even so it arrived in Setagaya with eleven men with 5000 m bests under 14 minutes.  In Setagaya three AGU runners ran major PBs, two going under 14 for the first time.  Second-yea...