japan running news

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) and Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the Sendai International Half Marathon Sunday in Sendai, Shikama in 1:01:31 and Njeri in 1:09:20. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) was the top Japanese woman at 2nd overall. The men's race went through 5 km in 14:34 and 10 km in 29:22. Shikama ran alongside top competition including Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.), who has been running well in half marathons this season, and Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Naoki Koyama (Honda). On a course with many small ups and downs, Shikama attacked on a downhill just after 15 km, quickly breaking free of the lead group of 7. 13 seconds up by 20 km, Shikama covered the last 1.0975 km in 3:06 to seal his first Sendai title. A graduate of Juntendo University , Shikama is in his 4th season with Logisteed. At the 2024 National Corporate Half Marathon he ran 1:00:41, and at last year's East Japan Corporate Ekiden he won the Third Stage. In his marathon d...

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...

There was a lot of action on the track over Japan's Golden Week holidays. Highlights: Shizuoka International Meet - Fukuroi, 3 May Men's 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) broke his own record with a 1:43.90 win. Daigo Usuki (18 Ginko) and Gakuto Mishima (Nippatsu) both broke the NR in the T20 men's 400 m, Usuki getting the win in 49.08 and Mishima 2nd in 49.15. Lauren Bruce (New Zealand) threw a meet record 67.44 m on her final attempt in the women's hammer throw, but even her shortest throw of 64.31 m was over 3 m better than the rest of the field. Kazuki Kurokawa (Sumitomo Denko) got the men's 400 mH meet record with a 48.50 for the win. Women's 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito (Panasonic) won the steeple in 9:31.83, the 2nd-best time in her career so far, despite falling. 2nd through 4th all broke 10 minutes. National University Men's Ekiden Kanto Region Qualifier - Hiratsuka, 4 May The top 8 teams at November's National University Men...

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 ...

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 ...

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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