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The last big race of the year is Monday's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden , the season-ending national championship race for university women. Between Mt. Fuji and October's Morinomiyako Ekiden , up to this season Meijo University was undefeated in 13-straight championship ekiden races, with 7-straight wins at Morinomiyako and 6 at Mt. Fuji. But nothing lasts forever, and at this year's Morinomiyako the last big dynasty school before Meijo, Ritsumeikan University , winner at Morinomiyako from 2011 to 2015 and at Mt. Fuji from 2013 to 2017, outran a flailing Meijo squad to take the win for the first time in 9 years. Its runners took stage wins on 3 of the 6 legs, Yumi Yamamoto breaking the Second Stage CR, Tomo Muramatsu the Third Stage CR, and anchor Makoto Tsuchiya outrunning Meijo captain Nanase Tanimoto for the win. Meijo's big names, especially Tanimoto and Nanaka Yonezawa , have been off their best most of this season, and it showed when they were only 4th at Mori...

Sunday's Morinomiyako Ekiden in Sendai is one of the two big national-level ekidens on the collegiate women's ekiden circuit. This is the era of Meijo University , who have won the last seven Morinomiyako titles and the last six at December's Mt. Fuji. Women's Ekiden , and just about the only real story here is whether anyone can stop them. Five out the six members of last year's winning team, Nanaka Yonezawa , Kaede Rikimaru , Asuka Ishimatsu , Saki Harada , and Nanase Tanimoto , are back, and the only one missing, 2nd-year Naru Yabutani , finished the lowest on the team on her stage at 4th last time. Tanimoto, the only 4th-year on the team, has had more downs than ups this season, but that was true last year too and Meijo came through. Perpetual 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University was only 52 seconds behind over the 38.0 km Morinomiyako course, and that was with one of its runners finishing only 12th on her stage. Its entire 2023 lineup is back, led by 2nd-year S...

The important thing to ask yourself is, "What comes next?" On January 10th the organizers of the Feb. 4 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon announced their field for this year's race. Among the general division entrants is Aoi Ota , the Aoyama Gakuin University 3rd-year who ran down leader Komazawa University on the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage to play a critical role in Aoyama Gakuin's upset win. Head coach Susumu Hara has floated the possibility of Ota running 2:04 at Beppu-Oita. This was the 7th Hakone title in the last ten years for AGU, but what's strange is that not a single member of those champion teams has gone on to make a Japanese national team at the two Olympics or five World Championships that have happened since AGU's era began. One recent example is Shungo Yokota , now of the JR Higashi Corporate Team . Just before his graduation from AGU last year, Yokota was 4th overall and 2nd Japanese at the 2023 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon in a collegiat...

Paris Olympics marathon team member Akira Akasaki is the first man from Kumamoto to make an Olympic marathon since the father of Japanese marathoning Shizo Kanakuri 100 years ago. Akasaki finished 2nd in October's Olympic marathon trials to make the Paris team, only the second man from Kumamoto prefecture to ever make an Olympic marathon team after Kanakuri at the 1924 Paris Olympics. On Nov. 6 Akasaki visited the town of Tamana in Kumamoto to pay his respects at the great Kanakuri's grave. At Tamana City Hall he was greeted by applause from city workers. Akasaki's coach at the Kyudenko corporate team, Kazuharu Takai , and his Takushoku University -era coach Masahiro Okada , were also in attendance to celebrate his achievement. Afterward Akasaki visited Kanakuri's grave to pay his respects and inform the legend's spirit that he will be running in the Olympics too. "Kanakuri was the creator of the Hakone Ekiden, and I was lucky to run it four times," sai...

The thing about dynasties is that sooner or later they're going to end. From 2003 to 2016 Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University won the Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden ten times and took 2nd the four times they didn't. But in 2017 Nagoya's Meijo University arrived on the scene and has won every year since then, its current streak of six national titles longer than Ritsumeikan's longest uninterrupted streak. Meijo holds the overall record of 2:02:57 for the 6-stage, 38.1 km course, slightly edited to 38.0 km this year, and its runners hold four of the six individual stage records. It keeps graduating top talent, most recently joint Third Stage CR record holders Narumi Kobayashi and Yuma Yamamoto , but head coach Katsuro Yoneda just keeps finding the top talent and helping it develop. But this season Meijo has been looking a little shaky. Out of last year's lineup, Fourth Stage CR breaker Nanase Tanimoto was 7th in last month's National Univ...

In January the Hakone Ekiden celebrates its 100th running, and it’s going to be the biggest road race in history. The university men’s ekiden season kicked off Monday with the season-opening Izumo Ekiden, where course record holder Komazawa University followed up last year’s triple crown of wins at all three major university ekidens with a CR-breaking title defense . Saturday is the next important race, the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying half marathon at Tokyo’s Showa Kinen Park, and being the top 13 there is everything. The top 10 teams at the 2023 Hakone Ekiden, Komazawa, Chuo University , Aoyama Gakuin University , Koku Gakuin University , Juntendo University , Waseda University , Hosei University , Soka University , Josai University and Toyo University , secured their places at the 100th. On Saturday 57 other universities will compete for the remaining 13 places at Hakone. It’s an extremely big deal to be in the field at the 100th, with schools like Rikkyo University , Keio...

The Kasumigaura Marathon and 10-Miler took place Apr. 16 in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki. In the most competitive race of the day, Yushin Akatsu kept 2023 Hakone Ekiden winner Komazawa University 's streak of road race domination this season going with a win by 15 seconds in 48:07. Komazawa's Shura Miyagi was the second collegiate finisher at 4th overall in 48:45. Considering that neither Akatsu nor Miyagi made Komazawa's entry roster of ten starters and six alternates for Hakone in January, their success at Kasumigaura showed just how hard other schools are going to have to work this fall to stop Komazawa from becoming the first program ever to sweep all three major university ekidens in a single season two years in a row. In the women's 10-miler, Takushoku University took the top two places, Yuko Umeki getting the win in 58:02 and teammate Mayuko Ii 2nd in 58:57. In the men's marathon, former Nihon University Hakone runner Benjamin Ngandu won by nearly 5 minutes ov...

The Yasukawa Denki men's corporate team has announced that four of its members including 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics marathoner Hisanori Kitajima , 38, are retiring. Kitajima won the Hakone Ekiden's Eighth Stage his fourth year at Toyo University . He finished 2nd as the top Japanese man at the 2016 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon to qualify for the Rio Olympics, where he placed 94th. In comments Kitajima said, "The last few years I've felt my body deteriorating day by day, and it was frustrating not to be able to do the kind of training and aggressive racing I used to. But that made me change the way I approached racing, and to approach it with more thought and craft. I learned new things and changed my way of thinking, and as I got older I found a new kind of enjoyment and satisfaction in racing. Part of that was being called a veteran, which felt like some kind of persona. It made me want to compete with the 'veterans' from other teams, and that came to be a m...

On Jan. 25 Takushoku University announced that Hiroshi Inoue , 60, will take over as head coach of its track and field program at the start of the new academic year on Apr. 1. Previous head coach Takuro Yamashita will step down at the end of March. A graduate of Komazawa University , Inoue ran the Hakone Ekiden all four years of his college career before going on to the Yasukawa Denki corporate team. Following his retirement as an athlete he became head coach at Oita Tomei H.S. , where he led the boys' and girls' teams to National High School Ekiden prominence for 34 years. Former Raffine corporate team head coach Kenichi Jiromaru , also a Komazawa graduate, will join Inoue as assistant coach at Takushoku. Takushoku failed to qualify for the Hakone Ekiden for the last two editions, but hopes are high that Inoue can return the team to its former strength. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/9f0d58b2cd3eca7c53880e44dfe2614b6e8f51f7 translated and edited by Bre...

The 9-stage, 42.195 km National Women's Ekiden takes place Jan. 15 in Kyoto starting and finishing at Takebishi Stadium. Absent from the stage entry list published Jan. 14 was the Gunma prefecture team's Seira Fuwa , 19, the collegiate 10000 m national record holder and a 2nd-year at Takushoku University . Her high school coach Hatsuo Kitada is serving as the Gunma team's coach this year. "We're looking toward her future," he said. "Now's not the time to overdo it." At last year's National Women's Ekiden Fuwa passed 13 people on the 4.0 km 4th leg, breaking its course record. Following that performance she sustained an Achilles tendon injury that kept her out of competition for most of 2022. In October she won her stage at the Morinomiyako Ekiden, but in order to ensure her continued recovery she did not run in December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships. Wakana Kabasawa of 2022 National Corporate Women's Eki...

The Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , the year-ending national championship for university women, happens this Friday at 10:00 a.m. Japan time, kicking off four days of the year's best racing over the course of five. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:50 a.m., TVer has the streaming, and @JRNLive will have the English coverage. When it comes to the collegiate men's ekiden circuit it's a given that Tokyo-area schools are going to win and, in most cases, fill the podium, but the college women's ekidens are more genuinely national, and in that way have a type of excitement the men's races lack. The Mt. Fuji race has 7 hilly stages totaling 43.4 km, with a mostly downhill first two stages, a rolling middle four, and an anchor stage that climbs almost 170 m. And Meijo University is going to win. Meijo is the four-time defending champ and is fresh off a sixth-straight win at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden where it won 5 of the 6 stages, 3 in CR time. The ...

Sunday is the 40th edition of Sendai's Morinomiyako Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships . NTV will be broadcasting the race live starting at noon local time, with coverage also on @JRNLive . 26 teams are racing for the national title, the complete course covering 38.1 km in 6 legs. Last year Meijo University led start-to-finish en route to a fifth-straight win, taking 5 of the 6 individual stage titles with 3 of them in course record time. 2 of the stage winners have graduated, but in their place Meijo has a very strong class of first-years led by Nanaka Yonezawa , 8:59.57 for 3000 m and 15:31.33 for 5000 m. 4 others are under 9:15 for 3000 m or under 15:50 for 5000 m, making solid support for the 4 returning members from last year. A lot depends on 4th-year Narumi Kobayashi , who ran a 10000 m  collegiate record 31:22.34 last year but hasn't run well most of her senior year so far. 4th-year Yuma Yamamoto on the other hand is fresh off a 15:16....

The Kanto Region qualifier for October's National University Women's Ekiden took place Sunday in Inzai, Chiba on a 6-stage, 34.4 km course, its first time in 3 years back on the roads. 5th at Nationals last year, Nittai University won in 1:55:03, its first time to win the qualifier in 8 years. 2021 Nationals 3rd-placer Takushoku University was 2nd in 1:55:33. Takushoku ran without collegiate 10000 m NR holder Seira Fuwa , who won the Sept. 10 National University Track and Field Championships 10000 m in a comeback from an injury in January. Planning for "a race that wouldn't rely on one runner," head coach Toshiharu Igarashi was very positive about finishing only 30 seconds behind Nittai, saying, "Our goal was 5th. Having exceeded that by a long shot is going to pay off later." Igarashi spoke well of senior Kae Gyu , who handled the longest stage, 8.6 km. "The results of everything she's done up to now are starting to come out now," he sa...

Takushoku University women's ekiden head coach Toshiharu Igarashi has revealed that he will take U20 and collegiate 10000 m record holder Seira Fuwa , 19, to watch the Oregon 2022 World Championships women's 10000 m in person. Last December Fuwa ran 30:45.21 for 10000 m, the 2nd-fastest Japanese time ever and easily clearing the 31:25.00 World Championships qualification standard. All she needed to do to make the Japanese team was finish top 3 at May's National Championships, but an injury to her right Achilles tendon in January made her give up on competing at Nationals and focus instead on treating the injury. Last month on Takushoku's official team social media Igarashi posted that Fuwa has started training again. "She isn't back to full-on workouts yet, but she's back to rhythm of regular running at a jogging pace," he wrote. He also posted, "I'm going to take Fuwa to America to see the Oregon World Championships in person." His ho...

Appearing on the news23 program on May 9, former women's marathon world record holder and Sydney Olympics marathon gold medalist Naoko Takahashi commented on 19-year-old Takushoku University 2nd-year Seira Fuwa 's withdrawal from the May 7 10000 m National Championships , the qualifying event for this summer's Oregon World Championships. "There's no need to overdue it," Takahashi said. "She's someone with the talent and ability to run 30:45.21, the 2nd-fastest time in Japanese history, in her first time running the 10000 m, an extremely high-potential athlete. The most important thing for her right now is to take it easy and fully recover from her injury. She's just 19 and has only just started on the road to realizing her dreams, and I'd like to ask everyone out there to support her in the longterm. Let's all take good care of her." Last month Takahashi interviewed Fuwa for the program, telling her, "If I had to say one thing...

Back in pre-pandemic days Akira Akasaki and Haruka Onodera  were still in college, Akasaki at Takushoku University and Onodera at Teikyo University . At the 2019 Ageo City Half Marathon they frontran most of the race together, dead set on finishing in the top two Japanese collegiate spots to win invitations to the 2020 United Airlines NYC Half. For Akasaki it had already been a year and a half wait. Inspired by Kenta Murayama 's 1:00:57 5th place in finish in New York in 2017 and Kei Katanishi 's 7th-place in 2018, Akasaki went for it his junior year in his debut at the 2018 Ageo Half . "Coming up to 10 km I was in the lead pack and feeling good, so I knew I had a shot at going to New York and got pretty excited," he said. But right after the 10 km turnaround point he tripped and fell, and by the time he was back up the lead group was out of range. He finished 20th in 1:03:07, over a minute and a half behind top Japanese university man Ken Nakayama . "I was f...

10000 m collegiate record holder and all-time Japanese #2 at 30:45.21, 18-year-old Seira Fuwa  (Takushoku Univ.) has withdrawn from plans to run this Sunday's National University Mixed Team Invitational Ekiden in Osaka and next weekend's National Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka. The Takushoku University women's team made the announcement on its official Twitter feed on Feb. 14. At the Jan. 16 National Women's Ekiden Fuwa broke 5000 m national record holder Ririka Hironaka 's course record for the 4.0 km Fourth Stage, running 12:29 and passing 13 people en route. Post-race she was excited about running the Mixed Ekiden, saying, "There aren't that many chances for men and women to run on the same team, and I'm really looking forward to running in a new ekiden!"  But in the team's announcement it said, "Everything going forward is for one thing: winning the May 7 National Championships 10000 m and competing at Worlds!" The announ...

The year's biggest races are just around the corner, with four days of championship ekiden racing in the space of five coming up this week. First up on Dec. 30 is the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university women's national championship, 7 stages totaling 43.4 km through the foothills of Mt. Fuji. Meijo University  has won the last three years, setting the course record of 2:21:38 last year, and it's going to win again. Meijo's core quartet Narumi Kobayashi , Yuma Yamamoto , Yuna Arai  and Yuna Wada  all made the Japanese top 25 for 5000 m or 10000 m this year, more than all other universities combined, and unless Meijo has some kind of major setback there's just no way for its strongest competition, perpetual 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University , to match it.  The most exciting thing to look forward to will be seeing how Takushoku University  1st-year Seira Fuwa , 30:45.21 in her 10000 m debut earlier this month, does on a more technical course than she has raced ...

Ririka Hironaka  (Japan Post) and Kengo Suzuki  (Fujitsu) topped JRN's 2021 women's and men's Japanese distance rankings. Hironaka ran big at the Olympics, making the women's 5000 m final and then running a national record 14:52.84 there for 9th. Five days later she was back with a near-miss on a rare Japanese sub-31 in the 10000 m, running 31:00.71 for 7th . Steadily improving over the last few seasons and unafraid to go further, Hironaka this year was the clear leader among the talented group of women aged 18-22 that is currently coming up to the top of the Japanese ranks. After winning the 12.1 km Sixth Stage to help  Fujitsu  win the  New Year Ekiden  Suzuki ran  a stellar 2:04:56 national record  to win February's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon. But apart from a 2:08:50 for 4th at October's  Chicago Marathon  and marrying marathoner Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) that was just about all he did this year.  Ichiyama and Mizuki Ma...