japan running news

by Brett Larner

Yoshihiro Wakamatsu (Team Nissin Shokuhin), a graduate of Hakone Ekiden course record holder Toyo University, won the final running of the historic Himejijo Road Race men's 10 miler on Feb. 11. Throwing in a surge at 7 km he easily broke away from the field, which included London Olympics marathoner Ryo Yamamoto (Team SGH Group Sagawa), two-time Himejijo winner Kazuyoshi Tokumoto (Team Monteroza), and Norihisa Imai of Toyo's 2014 Hakone-winning squad, to open a gap of 30 seconds and claim the win unchallenged in 47:38. Tsukasa Morita (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) was a solo 2nd in 48:08, his teammate Jun Shinoto, the 2006 national champion in the 3000 m steeplechase, winning a tight pack race for 3rd in 48:21.

In the women's 5 km, Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. went 1-2 with Tomoka Iwai winning in 16:24 over Tomoka Katada in 16:28.

The Himejijo Road Race is set to be transformed into a mass-participation marathon after 54 years as an elite event.  Look for the new race…

by Brett Larner

The Kyudenko corporate women's team ran down defending champion Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. thanks to a stage-winning run from anchor Misaki Kato, coming back from a 31-second deficit to win the 25th Kita-Kyushu Invitational Women's Ekiden by 10 seconds. Despite a 18:11 course record run on the 5.9 km Second Stage by Kenyan Sally Chepyego, Kyudenko fell steadily behind Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. over the 32.8 km course's first four stages.  31 seconds behind by the time she started, Kato was obliged to run 11.7 km while the high school teams had the anchor stage split into 4.9 km and 6.8 km sections with two different runners.  Ritsumeikan Uji's Aki Manabe and Yuka Sato both ran the fastest times on those two segments, but Kato, on a steady rise since a sub-71 half marathon debut at last September's Great North Run, was simply too much for them to handle.  Near the end of the race Kato overtook Sato, opening 10 seconds in the home straight to seal Kyudenko'…

2012 Fukuoka International Cross-Country Meet Results
Fukuoka, 2/25/12
click here for complete results

Senior Men's 10 km
1. Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.) - 30:27
2. Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 30:27
3. Akinobu Murasawa (Tokai Univ.) - 30:32
4. Daichi Motomura (Tokai Univ.) - 30:40
5. Yuya Konishi (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 30:47
6. Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 30:50
7. Hiroyoshi Umegae (Team NTN) - 30:56
8. Shinobu Kubota (Komazawa Univ.) - 30:58
9. Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) - 31:00
10. Hideyuki Anzai (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 31:02

Note: The top three men, Osako, Sato and Murasawa, are all graduates of Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S., along with 9th-place finisher Ueno.  Saku Chosei is one of the only schools to incorporate XC training as a staple of its methodology.

Senior Women's 6 km
1. Hitomi Niiya (Sakura AC) - 20:18
2. Grace Kimanzi (Kenya/Team Starts) - 20:38
3. Megumi Kinukawa (Mizuno) - 20:49
4. Ayuko Suzuki (Nagoya Univ.) - 20:56
5. Sachi Tanaka (Sports Yamagata 2…