japan running news

by Brett Larner

【富士山女子駅伝】 立命館大学が3連覇達成！！ pic.twitter.com/KLGTRxDwgR — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) December 30, 2015
Despite coming up short of replicating its perfect win, six stage titles and the overall victory, at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden, two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University's dynasty proved unstoppable as it led start-to-finish to win the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national university title for the third year in a row.

Having missed being part of the winning Morinomiyako team, Nanako Kanno, one half of Ritsumeikan's pair of top-level runners, led off with a 6-second lead on the steepest of the first four downhill stages, a lead that grew to 2:22 by the end of another strong run by second-year Kotona Ota, undefeated so far in her university ekiden career.  More dynamic racing happened further back in the field, where last year's runner-up Osaka Gakuin University, 4th-placer Meijo University and 5th-placer Matsuyama University exchanged places on almost e…

by Brett Larner

Four-time defending National University Women's Ekiden champion Ritsumeikan University delivered one for the record books, winning a fifth-straight title Sunday in Sendai as it broke the 38.0 km course record in 2:02:52.  With all six of its runners winning their individual stages including a 29:24 record for the 9.2 km Fifth Stage from Kotona Ota, the sheer quality of Ritsumeikan's win had fans talking on social media about the need for ekiden terminology like baseball's no-hitters and perfect games.  Regardless, this was about as dominant a performance as you could hope to see in an ekiden, every team member hitting it 100% running entirely alone with an unbreakable lead.

Last year's runner up Daito Bunka University was 2nd again after a great battle throughout the race with Kanto Region rival Nittai University and Aichi's Meijo University, one of only two schools to crack Ritsumeikan in the last 12 years.  But despite good performances from most …

by Brett Larner 

 High school track continued along the road to next month's National Championships with a nationwide round of regional championships this weekend.  Thirty-three girls across the country broke the 9:30 mark over 3000 m, with the fastest time of the weekend going to Kenyan Mary Waithira (Sendai Ikuei H.S.), who set an impressive meet record of 9:00.85 at the Tohoku Regionals meet over Kenyan rival Rosemary Wanjiru (Aomori Yamada H.S.), who ran 9:07.44.  The fastest performance by a Japanese girl came at the South Kanto Regionals meet, where Maki Izumida (Hakuoh Joshi H.S.) won in 9:17.74.  All but three regions featured winning times under 9:30.

Boys' performances were less noteworthy, but in the Tokai Region 5000 m Kenyan Jeremiah Karemi (Toyokawa H.S.) set a meet record of 13:52.51.  Charles Ndungu (Sapporo Yamanote H.S.) also set a meet record in the Hokkaido Region 5000 m, running 13:57.81.  Both boys' and girls' results were somewhat diminished by t…