japan running news

The Osaka International Women's Marathon , a selection race for September's Tokyo World Championships, took place Jan. 26 starting and finishing at Osaka's Nagai Stadium. In the field was 65-69 age group world record holder Mariko Yugeta , 66. Amid cold winds blowing through the city she ran 3:09:29. "I don't want to say that it's because I'm getting older, but this is getting more and more demanding and it's getting harder for my body to keep up with it," she said. After finishing the first thing Yugeta said was, "That was a bit disappointing...." with a pained look on her face. Her goal had been to break the 3:01:28 world record she set in the 65-69 age group at last year's Tokyo Marathon. "It was hard out there today," she said with a laugh. "Somebody told me that I look pale." A track runner in university, Yugeta ran her first marathon at the old Tokyo International Women's Marathon when she was 24. After t...

NHK has reported finding that 40% of mass-participation races across the country sponsored or co-sponsored by local prefectural governments reported lower participation levels. Experts in the field suggested that events need to take creative approaches to increase their popularity. February's Kochi Ryoma Marathon had a maximum field size of 12,000, but only 9,300 people entered. It was the second year in a row for the event to come in under capacity, forcing co-organizer Kochi Prefecture to utilize supplementary budget resources to cover the deficit caused by the missing revenue from entry fees. NHK found that out of 25 full and half marathon races across the country sponsored or co-sponsored by prefectural governments last year, nine were in the same situation as the Kochi Ryoma Marathon with shortfalls in numbers of entries. In terms of the ratio of entries to maximum field size, the Tottori Marathon was at only 70% capacity, the Tohoku Miyagi Fukko Marathon at 77%, Kochi Ryoma a...

It's the end of an era, really. Two months shy of her 40th birthday, Kayoko Fukushi  retired yesterday after running the Osaka Half Marathon . Five of the other legends of Japanese women's long distance, Akemi Masuda , Yuko Arimori , Naoko Takahashi , Masako Chiba  and Mizuki Noguchi , were there to celebrate a career spanning national records that have stood for over 20 years, still-standing championship ekiden stage records, possibly the most spectacular elite marathon debut in history, a World Championships marathon medal , and four-straight Olympic appearances.  For all that success, it always seemed to be there in the background that she wasn't able to break Yoko Shibui 's 10000 m NR, and she seemed like a reluctant marathoner, at least until it was too late. In interviews Fukushi was always interesting, dropping in her sharp, dry wit whenever she could, and with any luck we'll be getting more of that in the commentary booth for years to come. Since the start...

On June 16 the Tokyo Athletics Association announced that 1984 Los Angeles Olympics women's marathoner Akemi Masuda , 57, has been named its new director. Masuda, a frequent commentator on TV race broadcasts, already serves as director of the Japan Para-Athletics Federation and Japan Intellectual Disability Athletics Federation . source article: https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2021061601341&g=spo translated and edited by Brett Larner

This weekend coach Masato Yokota  is publishing half marathon national record holder Hitomi Niiya 's complete training diary for the 3 months+ leading up to this past January's  Aramco Houston Half Marathon  where Niiya   ran 1:06:38, at that point the fastest time ever by a woman born outside of Kenya or Ethiopia, for the win. This is part two, covering November, 2019. Read part one, October, here . So how did you like the first month of training? I was really happy to see that so many more people than I expected enjoyed reading about it. I read every question that people left in the replies. At some point I'll answer them all, so if you have questions please feel free to leave them in the comment section. Today is the second of three installments of Niiya's training from after the World Championships, covering Oct. 1, 2019 to setting the Japanese national record at the Houston Half on Jan. 19. This covers November's training. Compared to October it gets mo...

Today marks one year until the men's marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. For the third time in the last week, once last Friday with one year to go to the Olympic women's marathon, once on Monday with a likely competitor in the men's marathon, and again today, I ran most of the Olympic marathon course taking temperature and humidity readings every half an hour to get a handle on what kind of conditions athletes in each race can expect to be facing. Between the three runs I covered about 80 km, and including the two times I did it last summer two years out from the women's marathon and men's marathon about 135 km, on the Olympic course. To get it out of the way off the bat, a couple of days ago a few readers told me that the Buy Me A Coffee button wasn't working. I think the problem has been fixed, so if you're so inclined please feel free to use it. Your support for JRN is always really appreciated. And now on to the run. This time out I went ...

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20131001-00000000-spnavi-spo translated by Brett Larner The Japan Post Group held a press conference Oct. 1 in Tokyo to formally launch its new women's distance running team.   Masahiko Takahashi , who helped train Sydney Olympics women's marathon gold medalist and former world record holder Naoko Takahashi  and two-time Olympic marathon medalist Yuko Arimori , was named to the team's leadership position along with the announcement of an initial lineup of five female athletes headed by 2013 World University Games 10000 m gold medalist Ayuko Suzuki (Nagoya Univ.). Scheduled to get underway at the start of the new fiscal year on April 1, 2014, the women's distance team is the first fully sports-oriented team that the Japan Post Group has sponsored since its founding.  The strong and deep parallel between the postal service's mission of faithfully delivering letters and the ekiden's ideal of passing on the tasuki to those ye...

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/flash/KFullFlash20100927097.html http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/100927/oth1009272040025-n1.htm http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/100927/oth1009272039024-n1.htm translated and edited by Brett Larner The organizers of the Osaka International Women's Marathon have announced that in its 30th edition, scheduled for Jan. 30, 2011, the race will for the first time in 20 years feature a new course designed to facilitate faster times. Gone is the race's most distinctive feature, the hilly, twisting middle section through Osaka Castle. In its place the marathon will now cover a longer distance on Osaka's flat major roads, allowing for more crowd support throughout the race. 1984 Los Angeles Olympic marathoner Akemi Masuda commented, "With the elimination of the hilliest sections the Osaka course is now one where we can expect to see extremely fast times." Considering that the old course was already the site of the fastest women...

Suntory's 'Zeitaku Marathon' ad for its Boss Coffee was released on June 1. http://www.suntory.co.jp/softdrink/boss/cm_press/index3.html The commercial includes actors Atsushi Ito and Hiroshi Neko along with running greats Erick Wainaina, Shigeru Soh, Shingo Suetsugu, Dai Tamesue, Yoshio Koide and Akemi Masuda. JRN's Brett Larner is runner #808. Click here for a direct link to the 30-second version of the commercial.

Sorry for not posting much this week, but I've been on the set of a TV commercial shoot the last few days. The cast of the commercial included celebrities Atsushi Ito and Hiroshi Neko, marathon legends Shigeru Soh, Akemi Masuda and Erick Wainaina, Olympic and World Championships bronze medalist sprinter Shingo Suetsugu, two-time World Championships bronze medalist hurdler Dai Tamesue, famed marathon coach Yoshio Koide, three-time Japanese national duathlon champion Yuya Fukaura, a World Championships race walker whose name I didn't catch, several Hakone Ekiden runners, my training partner Jason Lawrence, me, a few others, and several hundred extras. If it becomes available on YouTube I'll post a link.