japan running news

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Japan's Ken Nakayama (Chuo Univ.) and Genki Kaneko (Josai Univ.) will run the Mar. 17 United Airlines NYC Half after taking the top two Japanese collegiate spots at November's Ageo City Half Marathon in school records of 1:01:32 and 1:02:16.

photo © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Sweden's David Nilsson has been nominated for European Athlete of November for his 1:02:09 national record at last month's Ageo City Half Marathon, where he raced Japanese national record holder Yuta Shitara through 20 km. Vote for Nilsson on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter by Saturday.

photo © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

This year I was again asked to give an impromptu speech at the welcoming banquet the night before the Ageo City Half Marathon, where Ken Nakayama (Chuo Univ.) and Genki Kaneko (Josai Univ.) earned invitations to the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half by taking the top two Japanese collegiate spots in 1:01:32 for 2nd overall and 1:02:16 for 6th. This is an English transcription of what I remember saying.

Hello, I’m Brett Larner, appearing here on behalf of the New York Road Runners. So, Japanese men are doing pretty well in the marathon this year, don’t you think? Two national records, the first gold medal at the Asian Games in 32 years, and look at the results from the World Marathon Majors, the series made up of the world’s six biggest marathons. Of the four races in which top Japanese men ran, there was a 2nd place at the Tokyo Marathon, a win at the Boston Marathon, a 4th place at the Berlin Marathon in a race that saw a new world record, and a 3rd place at the Chicago Marathon. Look tw…

Every year it seems like the question is how much further can Ageo go? The answer still seems to be more. More further.

The Ageo City Half Marathon is the world's greatest half marathon, the place where Hakone Ekiden-bound universities line up most of their rosters to help coaches whittle down the contenders for the final sixteen-man Hakone lineup. Perfect conditions at this year's race meant something special.

Four runners from Chuo Gakuin University led by Takumi Yokokawa took it out hard, splitting 5:47 at 2 km, 1:01:00 pace, well ahead of last year's CR with the entire field in tow. A field that included national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda), Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), Hakone uphill hero Daichi Kamino (New Balance), 2017 London World Championships marathoner David Nilsson (Sweden), Kenyans Michael Githae (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), Vincent Laimoi (Kokushikan Univ.) and Paul Gitonga (Kokushikan Univ.) and Ethiopian Workneh Derese (…

It's yet another busy mid-ekiden season weekend, but there's no question what its biggest race is. In a country packed with all of the world's deepest half marathons the Ageo City Half Marathon is the deepest of them all, universities targeting the legendary Hakone Ekiden transforming what would otherwise be an ordinary country town road race into something really special as each team's runner try to convince their coaches they belong on the Hakone A-squad.

Since 2011 the New York Road Runners have thrown fuel on the fire by inviting the top two Japanese collegiate finishers to March's United Airlines NYC Half in a program conceived and coordinated by JRN. The first runner to earn an invite was Toyo University second-year Yuta Shitara, who went over and ran what was then the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, 1:01:48, in his international road racing debut. Now the half marathon national record holder and a corporate leaguer for the Honda team, Shit…

The unique "civil servant runner" Yuki Kawauchi, 31, an employee of the Saitama Prefectural Government, gave a talk at the Ageo Cultural Center on Sept. 17 about the special appeal of the Ageo City Half Marathon held in Ageo every November. About 400 people attended the talk, part of an event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the city's sports association. Kawauchi runs the half marathon every year as an invited elite athlete.

Kawauchi first encountered the Ageo race while in 5th grade in elementary school, moving up to the half marathon division as a university student. Having run as fast as 1:03:22 in Ageo while still in university, Kawauchi said, "My results in Ageo were always good. It has a flat and easy to run course, and I always thought it was a good event."

He also emphasized that, as a JAAF-certified race, every year it features enormous numbers of runners from the top Hakone Ekiden universities. He presented data showing that students who perfor…

For the last seven years the New York Road Runners have invited a pair of Japan's best collegiate runners from November's Ageo City Half Marathon to run against world-class competition at the United Airlines NYC Half. The very first year of the program in 2012, one of the two sophomores from Toyo University to earn the invitation was future half marathon and marathon Japanese national record holder Yuta Shitara.

Since Shitara's trailblazing 1:01:48 in that race, others have gone to New York and come back to rise to the top of Japan's distance running world. Following in their footsteps are Komazawa University teammates Kei Katanishi and Shogo Ise. Katanishi, the gold medalist in the half marathon at the 2017 World University Games, was the top Japanese university man in Ageo last November and went on to break 62 minutes for the first time with a 1:01:58 at the Marugame Half in February. Ise, a second-stringer at Komazawa with two wins at second-tier Japanese half mara…

2017 Kanto Regionals 10000 m and half marathon D2 champion Simon Kariuki (Nihon Yakka Univ.)  overcame windy conditions at the 30th edition of the Ageo City Half Marathon to shave one second off the course record, winning in a PB 1:01:25.

Kariuki and 2017 Kanto Regionals D1 5000 m and 10000 m champ Patrick Mathenge Wambui (Nihon Univ.) took it out in the first km, setting up a fascinating duel between Kanto's top two collegiate men on the track.


Led by Hayato Seki, star runner of this year's Izumo Ekiden champ Tokai University in his half marathon debut, the main body of the Japanese pack gradually relinquished the lead to the Kenyan pair, down 50 seconds by 10 km and continuing to drift back from then. Ageo has typically seen its lead Japanese collegiate men running between high-61 and mid-62, but nobody in the field seemed willing to go ahead of Seki and the runner on his shoulder, 2017 World University Games half marathon gold medalist Kei Katanishi (Komazawa Univ.).


Near …

Ten years ago today Japan Running News started with a story about the withdrawal of Wataru Okutani from the Japanese men's marathon team just before the start of the Osaka World Championships. The concept was to provide a high-quality and reliable source for information in English about as much of the fascinating and exciting but otherwise invisible world of Japanese distance running as possible, and in the ten years of almost daily updates since then that ideal hasn't changed.

The timing couldn't have been better, capturing the arcs of Samuel Wanjiru, Arata Fujiwara and Yuki Kawauchi, the rise of the Hakone Ekiden-driven university men's running circuit and of Japanese men's sprinting, and the buildup toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Along the way JRN has grown in ways we couldn't have expected, bringing writing jobs for publications worldwide and TV commentating work, the chance to work directly with some of Japan's best athletes and to travel around the …

http://sports.yahoo.co.jp/column/detail/201701120002-spnavi

translated by Brett Larner

Ahead of his nomination to the London World Championships Marathon team, Sportsnavi published a three-part series of writings by Yuki Kawauchi on what it took for him to make the team, his hopes for London, and his views on the future of Japanese marathoning.  With his place on the London team announced on Mar. 17, JRN will publish an English translation of the complete series over the next three days. See Sportsnavi's original version linked above for more photos. Click here for part two, "Bringing All My Experience Into Play in London," or here for part three, "The Lessons of the Past Are Not 'Outdated.'"


The Fukuoka International Marathon was held on Dec. 4 last year. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov’t) took part despite nursing injuries he had sustained in training. Falling rain contributed to less than ideal conditions during the race, but from the very early stages…