japan running news

by Brett Larner

In its first running last year the Saitama International Marathon tagged a small elite women's race, the descendant of the defunct Yokohama International Women's Marathon and Tokyo International Women's Marathon, onto a new 3500-runner amateur race.  Tokyo International was a high-profile, high-prestige elite event that served an important role in both the development of women's marathoning worldwide and Japanese national team selection.  The profile and prestige dipped with the move to Yokohama, its 2014 winner Tomomi Tanaka controversially left off the 2015 Beijing World Championships team, and both dropped again last year with the move out to Tokyo's northwestern suburbs in Saitama.

Its legacy as the inheritor of Japan's premier women's race and nominal current role as a women's event are obscured by the co-ed mass marathon, local boy Yuki Kawauchi proudly splashed across the Saitama website's top page for this year's Nov. 13…

by Brett Larner

After being named to this year's World Half Marathon team on the strength of her runner-up finish at last month's National Track and Field Championships, Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu) closed off this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge with a bang. Kizaki won the HDC's Abashiri meet 10000 m in 31:38.71, a PB by over 45 seconds and a time which missed putting her in the top 10 worldwide so far this year by only 1 second. Second place finisher Kayo Sugihara (Team Denso) was nearly a minute behind in 32:33.37. Sugihara was the only runner in the top 5 not to run a PB.

Kizaki is now ranked 3rd among Japanese women for 10000 m in 2010. Combined with her rankings of 6th for 5000 m, 7th for half marathon and 5th for marathon she is the frontrunner to be named Japanese women's distance runner of the year.

Kenyan ace Edward Waweru (Team NTN) took the men's 5000 m in a quick 13:18.54, while 5th-placer Seung-Ho Baek (S. Korea), a university student and this year…