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 pace over the entire course. Along with Takeuchi and Shoji, Ryu Moriya was the only other runner to win 2 stages, taking the 10th and 18th legs on the first 2 days.
ND Software's Boniface Mulwa didn't run, but other Kenyans who've found local homes did. Peter Kamau, Luka Musembi and Benjamin Ngandu all ran twice each, with Kamau winning the 13th leg on Day 2 and Ngandu taking the 23rd leg on Day 3. There was even a stray Brit, Youtuber Jake Barraclough who JRN set up with his current training situation with ND Software. The sport went to a new level globally over the last 2 weekends, but it's reassuring to see that there's still a place for this kind of community event bringing together local students, amateurs, pros and internationals.
70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden
Yamagata, 27-29 April, 2026
11 teams, 29 stages, 306.9 km
Team Results
1. Yamagata - 16:06:51
2. Nanyo Higashi Okitama - 16:13:09
3. Tendo Higashi Murayama - 16:27:46
4. Sakata Akumi - 16:32:26
5. Higashi Murayama - 16:40:45
6. Shinjo Mogami - 16:46:18
7. Nagai Nishi Okitama - 16:50:38
8. Sagae Nishi Murayama - 16:59:28
9. Kaminoyama - 17:03:16
10. Yonezawa - 17:42:33
-----
DNF - Tsuruoka Tagawa
Top Individual Stage Results
1st Stage (17.1 km) - Daisuke Shimojo (Nanyo) - 51:08 - CR
2nd Stage (10.4 km) - Koichi Shoji (Yamagata) - 30:07 - CR
3rd Stage (10.9 km) - Shun Osawa (Yamagata) - 33:25
4th Stage (7.4 km) - Naoya Sugawara (Yamagata) - 22:46
5th Stage (6.2 km) - Kosei Miura (Yamagata) - 19:13
6th Stage (9.2 km ) - Shu Omi (Yamagata) - 28:17
7th Stage (6.8 km) - Hiroshi Mitsutake (Nanyo) - 20:32
8th Stage (20.2 km) - Jake Barraclough (Nanyo) - 1:03:32
9th Stage (9.6 km) - Ichiru Furukawa (Shinjo) - 29:52
10th Stage (5.9 km) - Ryu Moriya (Tendo) - 18:07 - CR
11th Stage (10.0 km) - Yusuke Tanabe (Shinjo) - 29:59 - CR
----- Day 2 -----
12th Stage (9.3 km) - Sora Sato (Tendo) - 28:11
13th Stage (13.9 km) - Peter Kamau (Sagae) - 42:30
14th Stage (18.1 km) - Ryoma Takeuchi (Kita Murayama) - 54:36
15th Stage (6.1 km) - Keigo Takeda (Nagai) - 19:21
16th Stage (8.5 km) - Masato Arao (Sakata) - 25:17
17th Stage (11.3 km) - Mahiro Yamaguchi (Nanyo) - 35:32
18th Stage (7.2 km) - Ryu Moriya (Tendo) - 23:45
19th Stage (11.3 km) - Motoshi Suzuki (Yamagata) - 37:27
20th Stage (16.1 km) - Fumiya Horiuchi (Nagai) - 52:49
21st Stage (11.6 km) - Gakuto Sato (Yamagata) - 38:17
----- Day 3 -----
22nd Stage (13.0 km) - Yuta Shimatsu (Nanyo) - 38:35 - CR
23rd Stage (13.4 km) - Benjamin Ngandu (Yonezawa) - 40:23
24th Stage (3.3 km) - Haruto Sato (Sagae) - 10:21
25th Stage (7.5 km) - Keito Adachi (Kaminoyama) - 23:22
26th Stage (3.1 km) - Kazuma Narita (Sakada) - 10:04
27th Stage (8.7 km) - Hiroto Suzuki (Tendo) - 25:41 - CR
28th Stage (16.6 km) - Koichi Shoji (Yamagata) - 48:46
29th Stage (14.2 km) - Ryoma Takeuchi (Kita Murayama) - 42:43
© 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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