Skip to main content

Racing Takes Another Step Back Toward Normal With Events in Nagano and Sapporo



Moderately-sized events in Nagano and Sapporo over the weekend marked a step back toward regular racing. Trail and mountain running have been going strong for a couple of months now, with all the main events featured staggered starts with runners starting one at a time in 30-second intervals. Saturday's Nozawa Trail Fes in Nagano featured groups of 30 runners starting every 3 minutes, socially distanced while in the starting corral. Between the 33 km long course, 19.5 km short course and Sunday's kids' run, about 850 people took part.

Top-ranked Japanese mountain runner Ruy Ueda won the men's long course, which had 1850 m elevation difference, in 3:02:18, putting more than 16 minutes on runner-up Masato Kamishohara. National team member Yuri Yoshizumi had almost the same margin of victory in the women's long course race, running 3:28:25 to 2nd-placer Takako Takamura's 3:44:13. Jinnosuke Omi took the men's short course in 2:01:30 by just 20 seconds over Yu Koyama, with Maki Tanaka winning the women's short course in 2:21:45. Elevation difference in the short course was 1150 m. Timing crew specialist Takuya Fujii wrote about the race in detail here.


Also Saturday in Sapporo's Moerenuma Park, the same park where the Hokkaido University Ekiden was held two weeks ago, the Moerenuma Trial Half Marathon took place with a similar strategy to that at the Nozawa Trail Fes. Socially distanced in the starting corral, the 400 finishers went off in groups of 50 and were ranked by net time. Kiyotaka Abe, who started in a later group and had a gross time of 1:21:52, took 1st in the men's race in 1:14:30. Running in an earlier group, Takahiro Takahashi clocked 1:16:01 on gross time but placed 2nd behind Abe in 1:15:07 net. Airi Sawada won the women's race in 1:27:42 net, her gross time of 1:35:04 also the fastest of the day.

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Measuring Marathon Courses by Bicycle

http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi?y=2013&d=0110&f=column_0110_034.shtml translated by Brett Larner The full marathon is a sport where you compete over 42.195 km, but how do they go about measuring that distance?  Today we're going to look a little bit at how they go about certifying the distance of a marathon. The reality is that major international marathons use a bicycle to measure the distance.  This rule is an international standard, and the same method of measurement is used everywhere.  It was put into place in 1986.  In order to ensure that the same method is used everywhere, a bicycle that meets IAAF specifications must be used for measurement. In the case of Japan's major marathons, to be certain that the distance is correct a provisional measurement is first made.  Before the course is certified using a bicycle the course is measured using a 50 m-long length of wire to determine that it is in fact 42.195 km.  When a bicycle is u...
2 comments
Read more

Ai Hosoda Announces Retirement

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/Photo Run, all rights reserved On Jan. 8 the Edion women's corporate team announced that Ai Hosoda , 30, will retire at the end of March this year. The Tokyo Marathon will be her last race. At Nagano Higashi H.S. Hosoda ran in the National High School Ekiden her 2nd and 3rd years. During her 3rd year at Nittai University she won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, going on to win the bronze medal in the 10000 m at the World University Games in her 4th year at Nittai. After graduating she joined the Daihatsu corporate team, debuting at the 2019 Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:29:27. 2 years later she transferred to Edion. She qualified for the Paris Olympics marathon trials at the 2022 Nagoya Women's Marathon and finished 3rd in the trials in the fall of 2023, but was later bumped down to Olympic alternate after another athlete ran a faster time. Instead of the Olympics, Hosoda ran the 2024 Ber...
2 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more