Skip to main content

Karemi Breaks Okukuma Half Marathon Course Record

As championship ekiden season wraps up Japan’s athletes have started the transition to the winter road season, with four decently competitive half marathons highlighting the first half of January.

At the hilly Okukuma Half Marathon, locally-based Africans Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) and Melaku Abera (Kurosaki Harima) duked it out one-on-one, Karemi through in a series of surges in the last 5 km before breaking away decisively with 1 km to go. Crossing the finish line in 1:01:48, Karemi took nearly two minutes off the course record with Abera just under 62 for 2nd.

2nd on the Hakone Ekiden’s Seventh Stage less than two weeks ago, Masanori Sumida (Nittai Univ.) outran corporate league competition Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) and Shohei Kurata (GMO) to take the top Japanese spot at 4th in 1:03:11. Spending most of the race behind a pack led by 2015 National Univeristy Half Marathon champion Tadashi Isshiki (GMO) and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov’t) outkicked the entire group to take 7th overall in 1:03:28, his fastest time in five straight years racing Okukuma.

In the past Okukuma has only had a 5 km on offer for women, won this time in 16:35 by Tokai Prep Fukuoka high schooler Miyaka Sugata. This year the race added a women’s half marathon, Yomogi Akasaka of 2017 National University Women’s Ekiden champ Meijo University taking the inaugural title in 1:13:36. 42-year-old Mari Ozaki (Noritz) showed no signs of slowing down, taking 3rd in 1:14:43.

The women’s race was the highlight at the Oita City Half Marathon, where 22-year-old Seina Yamanaka (Ehime Ginko) took 1st in 1:14:45. Local high schoolers Rika Ichihara (Nippon Bunri Prep H.S.) and Shunsuke Sato (Tsurusaki Kogyo H.S.) topped the 10 km, Ichihara winning the girls’ race in 34:41 and Saito cracking 30 minutes to win the boys’ race in 29:59.

Usually held a week before Okukuma, the Takanezawa Half Marathon was hurt by windy conditions and the absence of 2018 Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University, whose B-team has made up most of Takanezawa’s elite field in recent years. Shun Yuzawa of 2017 Izumo Ekiden winner Tokai University took the top spot in 1:04:30, the only runner to break 66 minutes.

Better depth was to be found at Tokyo’s Hi-Tech Half Marathon, where independent Hideyuki Ikegami followed up his breakthrough 2:13:41 PB at November’s Osaka Marathon with a win in 1:04:39, his second time winning after outrunning Yuki Kawauchi in 2014. Another independent, Kaoru Nagao won the women’s race in 1:16:56. Osaka women’s winner Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) was 8th in only 1:20:46.

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more