18-Year-Old Shimoda Sets Takanezawa Half Marathon Course Record

by Brett Larner

An alternate for Aoyama Gakuin University's course record-setting team at last week's Hakone Ekiden, 18-year-old Yuta Shimoda led the field with a 1:03:16 course record at the 42nd running of the Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon on Jan. 11 in Takanezawa, Tochigi. Shimoda's time was a PB by over 3 minutes and was enough to beat fellow AGU first-year alternate Yuki Nakamura by more than 45 seconds. AGU runners took the top four spots, with Hakone 6th-placer Tokai University alternate Ryunosuke Hayashi 5th in 1:04:28, also under the old course record. Nami Iwahara (Gazelle AC) won the women's division in 1:23:22.

Course records also fell at the Oita City Half Marathon in Kyushu. 2014 Kita-Kyushu Marathon winner Yuka Yano led a Canon AC Kyushu sweep of the top four spots in the women's race with a course record 1:13:41. Ethiopian Melaku Aberu, a runner for the locally-based Kurosaki Harima team, outran Oita native and sub-2:10 marathoner Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) for the win in the men's race in another course record of 1:02:47.

Solid women's results also turned up at the 16th Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon in Tokyo, where Eri Okubo (Miki House) beat her former teammate Yumiko Kinoshita (Second Wind AC) by nearly 30 seconds in 1:15:31. Minor league corporate runners Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) and Yusuke Kodama (Comodi Iida) went head-to-head in the men's race, Matsumoto getting the win by 8 seconds in 1:06:25.

42nd Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon
Takanezawa, Tochigi, 1/11/15

Men
1. Yuta Shimoda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:16 - CR, PB
2. Yuki Nakamura (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:02 - PB
3. Koki Ito (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:20 - PB
4. Kinari Ikeda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:25 - PB
5. Ryunosuke Hayashi (Tokai Univ.) - 1:04:28
6. Kokoro Watanabe (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:58
7. Nanami Arai (Tokai Univ.) - 1:05:02
8. Nozomi Okoshi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:05:31
9. Kento Tamura (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:05:53
10. Shu Ogasawara (Tokai Univ.) - 1:05:58

Women
1. Nami Iwahara (Gazelle AC) - 1:23:22

16th Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon
Arakawa, Tokyo, 1/11/15

Men
1. Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) - 1:06:25
2. Yusuke Kodama (Team Komodi Iida) - 1:06:33

Women
1. Eri Okubo (Miki House) - 1:15:31
2. Yumiko Kinoshita (Second Wind AC) - 1:15:55

Oita City Half Marathon
Oita, 1/12/15

Men
1. Melaku Abera (Ethiopia/Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:02:47 - CR
2. Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 1:04:19
3. Tatsuya Oshinomi (Team Nishitetsu) - 1:04:46
4. Junichi Tsubouchi (Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:04:56
5. Kaoru Nakahara (Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:05:06

Women
1. Yuka Yano (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:13:41 - CR
2. Chieko Kido (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:14:19
3. Megumi Amako (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:16:09
4. Chiyuki Mochizuki (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:7:56

(c) 2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Yuasa and Niiya Win Hokkaido Marathon, 6 Qualify for Olympic Trials

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