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70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...
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April Track Roundup

Four big meets with distance action happened across Japan over the 2nd half of April. Highlights from each of them: Hyogo Relay Carnival - Kobe, 18-19 April Hirokazu Sakai (Senko) set a 2.25 m MR in the men's high jump. Sae Takemoto (Orico) threw 59.68 m to set a new MR in the women's javelin throw. Distance events were pretty low-key, with Ryota Natori (Konica Minolta) winning the men's 10000 m in 28:49.74 and Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) the women's 5000 m in 15:44.03. National University Individual Championships - Hiratsuka, 24-26 April Miori Kida  (1st yr., Juntendo Univ.) debuted with 4:19.14 MR in the women's 1500 m, going 0.12 under the previous record set last year. Sarah Wanjiru (4th yr., Daito Bunka Univ.) kicked off her senior year by chopping 25 seconds off her own 10000 m MR to by over a minute in 31:23.69. Mao Kimura (1st yr., Meijo Univ.) had a great debut in 32:31.56 for 2nd, more than 70 sec up on 3rd place. Shunpei Yamaguchi (3rd yr., Waseda ...
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'Rabat 2026: Records Fall, Stars Rise at Inaugural Grand Prix'

https://www.paralympic.org/news/rabat-2026-records-fall-stars-rise-inaugural-grand-prix-season While Yudai Shimazu 's 14:03.45 debut as a para athlete in Rabat was a T13-class world record by over 17 seconds, his actual PB is 13:33.83 from last May's Golden Games in Nobeoka. Expect him to take this WR, and others in his class, a lot further. His other current PBs vs. the existing T13 WR : 3000 m : 7:58.34 (Kitami 2024) / 8:07.64 (Mikey Brannigan/USA 2017) 10000 m: 28:24.69 (Hachioji 2024) / 31:41.85 (Said Gomez/PAN 1988) half marathon: 1:01:32 (Yamaguchi 2025) / no existing record marathon: 2:11:20 (Osaka 2024) / 2:22:25 (Carlos Talbot/USA 1988)
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Li and Myers Win Mt. Fuji 100

  https://www.irunfar.com/this-week-in-running-april-27-2026 complete results
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Ogikubo Breaks Road 10 km NR - April Road Roundup

And now back to our regular schedule. Two of Japan's best current marathoners, Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko), 6th in the Paris Olympics and 2nd in Berlin last fall in a 2:06:15 PB, and Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku), 7th in Osaka last year in a PB of 2:06:06, were supposed to be in on the wild action at the Boston Marathon and London Marathon , but both ended up scratching with injury. It's hard not to wonder what kind of dent they might have made, especially Akasaki. In Kikuchi's absence London didn't have any elite-level Japanese athletes, and the only one in Boston was Mao Uesugi (Tokyo Metro), 2:22:11 in Nagoya last year. Uesugi went out relatively strongly but faded hard in the hills to finish only 26th in 2:34:38. One other Japanese woman, Sherry Drury , ran the BAA Mile held the Saturday before the marathon, finishing 6th in 4:43.26. Bigger news the same day as the BAA Mile came in Spain, where Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) followed up his 1:00:22 half ma...
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M.I.A.

Sorry to have been silent for a while. JRN associate editor Mika Tokairin  was in Taiwan for Ironman Penghu, where she won her age group to qualify for Kona for the first time. Right after that we moved for the first time in 14 years, and immediately after that I headed to the U.S. to help Keita Sato  get settled in his new training base in Flagstaff. We'll be resuming normal operations shortly with a big roundup of results over the last 2 weeks. Brett Larner
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Mashiko Breaks U20 5000 m NR - Weekend Track Roundup

Saturday's Kanakuri Memorial Meet in Kumamoto was the weekend's main event in Japanese track, but there were good results at the Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama too. Emmanuel Maru (Toyota Boshoku) led the men's 5000 m A-heat at Kanakuri in 13:14.06, with Tomonori Yamaguchi (SGH) clocking the fastest Japanese time in 13:16.38 in his first race as a corporate leaguer. Waseda University duo Rui Suzuki and Yota Mashiko went 6-7 in 13:20.64 and 13:22.87, the 18-year-old Mashiko shaving 0.04 off the U20 NR. In 8th, Yamato Yoshii (Toyota) ran a PB of 13:23.92. 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Subaru) continued to struggle after a weak indoor season, finishing 18th of 20 finishers in 13:45.10. 19-year-old Festus Kimorwo (Kurosaki Harima) was under 13:20 in the B-heat too, winning in a 13:19.59 PB. 2 more collegiate men broke 13:30, Daichi Fujita (Chuo Univ.) 8th in 13:28.93 and Riki Koike (Soka Univ.) 9th in 13:29.09. The top 6 in the men's 800 m A-hea...
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Kanakuri Memorial Meet Streaming and Start Lists

Japan's outdoor Grand Prix season kicks off Saturday in Kumamoto at the Kanakuri Memorial Meet . Streaming will be at the link above starting at 9:30 a.m. local time. Complete timetable and start lists . Main events and some noteworthy entries: GP Women's 800 m Heat 2  - 12:10 p.m. All-time JPN #4 Ayano Shiomi , 2:01.01 GP Men's 800 m Heat 2  - 12:30 p.m. GP Women's 3000 mSC  - 2:45 p.m. All-time JPN #4 Yuzu Nishide , 9:38.95 All-time JPN #5 Manami Nishiyama , 9:39.28 South Korean NR holder Ha-Rim Cho , 9:53.09 GP Men's 3000 mSC  - 3:05 p.m. All-time JPN #2 Ryoma Aoki , 8:18.75 All-time JPN #5 Yutaro Niinae , 8:19.54 All-time JPN #7 Hibiki Obara , 8:22.64 All-time U20 JPN #2 Tetsu Sasaki , 8:29.05 All-time U20 JPN #3 Soma Nagahara , 8:30.37 GP Women's 1500 m Heat 2  - 3:35 p.m. Teresiah Muthoni , 4:02.54 Margaret Ekalale , 4:09.64 all-time JPN #3 Ran Urabe , 4:07.90 All-time JPN #6 Tomoka Kimura , 4:09.79 All-time U20 #5 Mei Sakiyama , 4:13.67 GP Men's 1500...
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