japan running news

A big group of Japanese men ran the Berlin Half Marathon on Mar. 29. The top finisher among them, Hikaru Tsujihara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) ran 1:00:33 for 11th, the 8th-fastest time ever by a Japanese-born collegiate runner. The time improved his PB of 1:00:51 from last year's Marugame Half by 18 seconds. Tsujihara went on from that performance to set a CR on last October's Izumo Ekiden 4th leg, then was 9th on the 2nd leg at the National University Ekiden and 4th on the Hakone Ekiden 's 4th leg. Tsujihara's KGU teammate Yuta Asano was 12th in 1:01:12, a PB by 15 seconds over his time at this year's Marugame. Hikaru Ogawara (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was 20th in 1:01:30, another PB by 44 seconds ahead of his time in Marugame last year. Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Logisteed) was 32nd in 1:02:51, Kosei Atomura (Koku Gakuin Univ.) 39th in 1:03:16, Aito Sato (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) 42nd in 1:03:40, and Itsuki Takaishi (Koku Gakuin Univ.) 43rd in 1:04:03. Japanese-born Collegiate...

It's the point in the season where Hakone Ekiden-bound university coaches are farming out their squads to half marathons to sort through the contenders to make their 16-runner Hakone entry rosters. Next weekend's Ageo City Half Marathon is the biggest of them, but two key races happened today. In rainy conditions at the Setagaya 246 Half in Tokyo, Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.) won a sprint finish against sub-60 man Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon), Kuira overtaking Yamaguchi after Yamaguchi had pulled away over the last km but Yamaguchi fighting back on the track. Both clocked 1:01:46, but Yamaguchi succeeded in snagging the win away from Kuira right before the line. In 3rd, Aito Sato led a massive group from 2025 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin University with a PB of 1:01:57 for 3rd. 5 other AGU runner were under 63 minutes, all but one breaking 62:30 and most in PBs, with Kotaro Suzuki (Chuo Univ.), 8th in 1:02:28, and Yota Aoteki (Hosei Univ.), 10th in 1:02:46 breaking up AGU...