japan running news

The Tokyo Marathon dominated the landscape this weekend , from the fastest-ever runs on Japanese soil by winners Sutume Asefa Kebede  and Benson Kipruto  to Yusuke Nishiyama 's heartbreaking reaction to missing the Paris Olympics team despite an excellent 2:06:31 after falling to Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh 's 2:26:32 Mongolian NR that qualified for the Paris Olympics. There were dozens of other stories in the race, like Joan Benoit Samuelson  completing her World Marathon Majors six star, and her longtime fan Mariko Yugeta  running 3:01:28 at age 65. Including the 19 seconds it took her to get to the start line Yugeta went through halfway in 1:29:05 and was still on track for sub-3 at 35 km, but over the last 7.195 km it slipped away. Still, though, it was a single-age world record, that age graded  to a 2:10:54 marathon. At the Kagoshima Marathon , locally-based Eritrean  Dejen Tesfalem Weldu  who graduated from Seisa University  last year won his...

While many of the other main contenders for September’s MGC Race, Japan’s new 2020 Olympic trials marathon, were focused on trying to run super fast times at the Tokyo Marathon , 2018 Asian Games gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) did his last major tuneup for next month’s Boston Marathon at the 70th edition of Kumamoto’s Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon . Throughout the race Inoue went head-to-head with 2018 winner Patrick Muendo Mwaka (Aisan Kogyo) before finally dropping him in the final kilometers. At 1:02:21 Mwaka was more than 30 seconds up on his winning time from last year, but Inoue surged away from him to win in 1:02:12, his best half marathon time in four years and the second-fastest winning time in Tamana’s 70-year history. Only five people had ever broken 63 minutes at Tamana previously, but this year the top eight all did it, 8th-placer Shunsuke Kanbe (Komazawa Univ.) running a PB 1:02:56. Boston-bound Shizuoka Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov’t) w...

Sunday morning featured two big half marathons in Tokyo and Kyushu, both impacted by an unseasonal heat wave that swept the country over the weekend. At the National University Men's Half Marathon in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park, Ryuya Kajitani (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) timed a break perfectly to win his first national title in 1:03:20. Hanging back in a secondary pack as rivals Takeshi Nishida (Tokai Univ.) and Shogo Ise (Komazawa Univ.) duked it out up front through most of the race, Kajitani went to the front with 5 km to go. Ise tried to match him but fell behind and ended up 2nd in 1:03:31, Nishida another 5 seconds back in 1:03:36 for 3rd. Four-time Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin placed three runners in the top ten without running any of its A-list men, a sign that depth was down overall from some of the record-breaking mass finishes in recent years. National University Men’s Half leaders 14:47 at 5k. Huge uninterrupted pack. pic.twitter.com/zBykCalXok — Japan Running Ne...

by Brett Larner video by Ekiden News 【学生ハーフ】 スタートしました！ユニバーシアードへの切符は誰の手に！？ pic.twitter.com/icWUjoqbc7 — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) March 5, 2017 Quickly rising to the top of university men's distance running this season with a 58:43 3rd-place finish at October's Hakone Ekiden qualifier 20 km and a 1:07:17 win on the 23.2 km Hakone Ekiden Second Stage, Kengo Suzuki (Kanagawa Univ.) ran the biggest race of his career to date with a course record-breaking 1:01:36 win at the 2017 National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. 1:01:25 man Naoki Kudo (Komazawa Univ.) took the race out at sub-61 pace, but after a 29:08 split at 10 km Suzuki got down to work.  Pushing the second half and pulling away alone, he became the first man to break 62 minutes at the National University Half, the deepest half marathon in the world with 265 finishers sub-66 in 2015.  Suzuki's finishing time of 1:01:36 made him the 7th-fastest Japanese-...

http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20150309k0000m050030000c.html translated by Brett Larner At the 66th Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon on Mar. 8 starting and finishing in front of Tamana City Hall in Kumamoto, invited athlete Koichi Sakai (Team Fujitsu) scored his first win in 1:02:54.  Just 4 seconds back in 2nd was Tomohiro Tanigawa (Team Konica Minolta), with Keijiro Mogi (Team Asahi Kasei) 3rd.  Still recovering from an injury to his left calf two weeks ago, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) was 24th in 1:06:37. Sakai won the race with an early move.  "I don't have much speed, so if it comes down to a last kick I can't win," he said of the surge he threw in at 17 km to pull away from the seven-man lead pack and open a 4-second lead over Tanigawa.  With a thick and chunky build unusual for a distance runner, the 28-year-old Sakai has had success as a road racer ever since his days at Komazawa University .  Sakai was not one of Fujitsu's starting ...

by Brett Larner The National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in Tokyo led three competitive Japanese half marathons this weekend.   Shogo Nakamura  of 2012 National University Men's Ekiden winner  Komazawa University  outran defending champion Toshikatsu Ebina  (Teikyo Univ.) for the win, 1:02:41 to 1:02:49 with the next three runners all going under 63 minutes for the first time.  All told, 38 collegiate men broke 64 minutes with 175 clearing 67.  The selection race for this summer's World University Games half marathon team, the overall fast day at the Championships ensured that Nakamura will lead a strong team this summer.  In post-race comments he said that his goal is the gold medal. At the Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon in Kumamoto, 19-year-old Daichi Kato  (Team Toyota Kyushu) handed Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't) his second loss of the year, keeping an eye on Kawauchi's water station surges and breakin...

by Brett Larner The end of the Japanese road season approaches with three big races on Sunday.  First is the last of the domestic selection races for Japan's World Championships marathon team, the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon .  With 2:05:13 man  Vincent Kipruto  (Kenya), 30 km world record holder  Peter Kirui  (Kenya) and 2012 Houston Marathon winner  Tariku Jufar  (Ethiopia) in the field Wilson Kipsang 's 2:06:13 course record may be in reach, or at least the 2:06:50 winning time last weekend in Tokyo.  For the Japanese men the Federation has set a 2:07:59 hoop for a guaranteed place on the Moscow team, and the men have been jumping.  The main candidates for the team so far are: Kazuhiro Maeda  (Team Kyudenko) - 2:08:00 - PB  (4th, Tokyo) Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref.) - 2:08:15 - PB  (1st, Beppu-Oita) Hiroyuki Horibata  (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:08:24 - PB  (2nd, Fukuoka) Kentaro Nakamoto  (Team Y...

by Brett Larner complete results coming soon Three major half marathons across Japan started off the morning of Mar. 4 in style.  At the 63rd Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon , Komazawa University graduate Takuya Fukatsu (Team Asahi Kasei) ran a solo 1:01:25 course record, the all-time #8 Japanese mark on an unaided course and bettering the 1:01:31 mark set by Fukatsu's former Komazawa teammate Yusuke Takabayashi  (Team Toyota) last month at Marugame.  Fukatsu ran together with Kenyans Kiragu Njuguna  (Daiichi Kogyo Univ.) and Dishawn Karukuwa Maina  (Team Aisan Kogyo) before dropping them in the second half of the race to win by over a minute.   Hiroko Miyauchi  (Team Kyocera) won the women's 10 km in 33:09, with Shuhei Kondo  (Oita Tomei H.S.) winning the high school boys' 10 km in 29:38. At the Shizuoka Sunpu Half Marathon , Shinichi Yamashita  (Takigahara SDF Base) won in a conservative 1:04:58 over Teikyo University's Katsunori Wa...

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2011/03/08/kiji/K20110308000390760.html translated by Brett Larner Tamana city officials announced on Mar. 8 that two corporate runners at this year's 62nd edition of the Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon , held Mar. 6, were hit from behind by a small truck during the race. The city's spokesperson said, "We have been late in issuing reports on the accident to the local athletics federation and media. We deeply apologize." According to city officials, the athletes injured in the accident, both belonging to the Kurosaki Harima corporate team, were team captain Mamoru Iwaida , 28, and Shuzaburo Kubo , 20. Iwaida suffered only minor injuries, but Kubo's left ankle was broken and he will be out of training for at least six weeks as a result. Both runners dropped out of the race after being hit. At the time of the accident the two runners were roughly 16 km from the start running southbound on the prefectural highway when a smal...

by Brett Larner click here for photos of the race With ideal weather across most of the country, Kenyans Dishon Karukuwa (Team Aisan Kogyo) and Titus Waroru (Chinzei Gakuin H.S.) ran through light rain to take down the course records in the men's half marathon and high school boys' 10 km divisions at the 62nd running of the Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon Mar. 6 in Tamana, Kumamoto. Back on the roads after running January's Osaka International Women's Marathon, last year's runner-up Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera), one of the nine Japanese women training in Christchurch, New Zealand at the time of the recent major earthquake, took the women's 10 km by a wide margin. The 19 year-old Karukuwa ran 1:02:20 to break the standing half marathon course record by 18 seconds. He was the first Kenyan winner in Tamana history and only the third non-Japanese to ever take the title. Runner-up Yukinobu Nakazaki (Team Toyota Kyushu) ran a strong 1:03:09, fast enough to...

by Brett Larner Fresh back from New Zealand where she was spotted at Rikuren's marathon training camp by JRN reader Jason Lawrence, 3000 m, 5000 m and half marathon national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) ran a solo 31:57 10 km course record at the 61st Kanaguri Hai Tamana Road Race in Kumamoto on Mar. 7 to become the first woman to break 32 minutes in the 25 years that the women's 10 km has been part of the event. Running alone and unpressured with her nearest competition nearly a minute behind, Fukushi's time would have put her 4th in last week's much-heralded World's Best 10 km in San Juan, Puerto Rico and is the latest sign that she is back to her best. Last year's winner Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) finished 2nd in 32:43, while Mika Okunaga (Team Kyudenko) was 3rd in 33:29 in a tuneup for next week's Nagoya International Women's Marathon. The course record also fell in the high school boys' 10 km, where Kenyan students took the...

http://kyushu.yomiuri.co.jp/local/kumamoto/20090607-OYS1T00355.htm translated by Brett Larner Click photo for larger image. A three-time world record setter known as 'The Father of Japanese Marathoning,' Shizo Kanaguri (1891-1983) has been honored with a board game depicting his life. The game is available for sale at the Kokoropia Historical Museum in his hometown of Tamana, Kumamoto. Kanaguri was born in Nagomi, Kumamoto. While a student at the Tokyo High School Teachers College (now Tsukuba Univ.) in 1911, he set a world record of 2:32:45 while running a domestic qualification race for the Olympic games and became Japan's first Olympic marathoner. He continued competing professionally until age 33 and after his retirement continued his leadership, helping to spread the marathon throughout the country, serving on the Hakone Ekiden organizing committee, taking part in the Kyushu Isshu Ekiden, and running the 1200 km between Shimonoseki and Tokyo. In later years he lived in...