japan running news

The men's half marathon component of the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships relocated this year away from the main part of the meet in May to be held as part of the Yaizu Minato Half Marathon in Shizuoka, a longstanding part of the collegiate half marathon calendar with its Pair Marathon team competition. At Kanto Regionals D1 and D2 teams are usually split into 2 separate starts with a time stagger and run on a loop course. This time around they started together, giving people who wouldn't usually be racing together the chance to go head-to-head. Soka University 3rd-year Shoki Yamaguchi was the only one to try to go with Yamanashi Gakuin University 4th-year Brian Kipyegon , both hitting 5 km in 14:28 before Kipyegon said goodbye. Kipyegon rolled on solo to take the D1 title in 1:01:23, just 9 seconds off his own meet record on a different course. Yamaguchi hung on well enough for 1st in the D2 field in 1:02:55, runner-up Kuranosuke Yoshida of last year...

The organizing committee of the Yaizu Minato Half Marathon announced this week that its 41st edition on Apr. 5 will host the 105th Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships. Launched in 1919, with over 100 years of history Kanto Regionals is Japan's premier college track meet. Every year it is held over the course of 4 days in mid-to-late May, with this year's 105th edition scheduled for May 21-24 at Tochigi's Kanseki Stadium. This year the half marathon, typically held on a short loop course around the host stadium, will be held a month and a half earlier in Yaizu in conjunction with that race's longstanding pair marathon collegiate race that combines the top 2 times from participating universities to determine a team score. he Kanto Regionals half marathon was staged as a 25-mile race at the meet's first edition, then as a marathon for its 29th through 47th editions and a 30 km for the 48th through 67th editions before settling into its current format...

After a wild New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships yesterday that saw new CR on 6 of the race's 7 stages and a 7-second miss on the one that wasn't broken, Day One of the 102nd Hakone Ekiden more than lived up to what the pros had done 24 hours earlier. Only one runner, Chuo University 's Yamato Yoshii in 2022, had ever broken 61 minutes for the 21.3 km First Stage , but when Chuo's Daichi Shibata took it out on CR pace the entire field went with him. It took a while for Ageo City Half winner Rui Aoki of Izumo Ekiden champ Koku Gakuin University to move up to the front, but when he did it was decisive. Aoki crushed the CR in 1:00:28, 59:54 half marathon pace, and behind him the next both Shibata and the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team's So Kawasaki from Tsukuba University also went under Yoshii's old 1:00:40 record. 4th through 8th broke 61, setting the tone for the rest of the day. Chuo, KGU, last year's top 2 Aoyama...

With the best half marathon credentials in the field of 42 Kanto Region university teams, 11 runners with half marathon bests under 64 minutes, Chuo Gakuin University took the top spot at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon, the official qualifying race for January's 102nd Hakone Ekiden. With a 1:00:45 best Hiro Konda let the way for CGU as the top Japanese finisher in the race, running 1:02:04 for 7th overall. Taisei Ichikawa was next at 18th in 1:02:16 and Kotaro Osabe next in 1:02:57 for 38th, and CGU's other 7 scoring members all came through with a good run to give CGU the win in a combined time of 10:32:23, a 10-man average of 1:03:14.30. That was a bit on the slow side given the excellent conditions which were thanks in part to the race starting an hour earlier this year. An all-African lead group took it out hard, splitting 14:25 and 28:43 at 5 km and 10 km. The projected finish time was 1:00:35 at that point, in range of the best Japanese athletes in the filed...

Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) was back from the dead yet again to win today's Sendai International Half Marathon women's race. Starting out with company from Selly Kaptich (Kyudenko) and Yuri Mitsune (Hitachi), Suzuki was always a step ahead. Putting away Mitsune early in the 2nd half, it took until the last km for her to break Kaptich, winning in 1:11:00 with Kaptich 8 seconds back in 2nd. Mitsune faded over a minute, just hanging on to 3rd in 1:12:02 over Mayuka Fujita (Route Inn Hotels). Ibuki Kaneko (Komazawa Univ.) frontran the early going in the men's race, 7 seconds up on the main group at 5 km in 14:51 but out of the top 20 by 10 km. Andrew Lorot (YKK) took clear control in the 2nd half, 12 seconds ahead by 15 km and pulling away all the way home to the win in 1:01:41. After facing criticism for making the Tokyo World Championships marathon team off the JAAF's JMC series rankings in spite of not having broken 2:10 in his last two marathons, Naoki Koyama (Hon...

With high humidity, mostly sunny skies and temps reported as high as 30˚ it was just too hot for fast times at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon qualifying race for January's 101st Hakone Ekiden. Individual winner and last year's 1:00:16 CR setter Shadrack Kipkemei from Nihon University and runner-up Brian Kipyegon of Yamanashi Gakuin University lasting the whole way on sub-1:01 pace and going 1:00:59 and 1:01:02 was really exceptional given the weather, but you could see how tough it was given that only five people went under 1:02 and seven under 1:03 compared to 11 and 38 last year. Top Japanese finisher and 1:00:31 half marathoner Reishi Yoshida of Chuo Gakuin University was only 10th in 1:03:29 and collegiate record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University 11th in 1:03:35. But ultimately the Yosenkai is about team scoring based on the total times of each school's first ten finishers, so while the unseasonal summertime conditions held times ba...

The 103rd edition of the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships wrapped Sunday at Tokyo's National Stadium. Kenyans won four of the five long distance events of the day, with 2nd-year Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) defending his won D1 half marathon title and breaking the MR he set last year with a new 1:01:38 MR. That was over a minute and a half better than 2nd-placer Ren Umezaki (Toyo Univ.) and especially impressive given hot early morning temps of 25˚C. 3rd-year Patrick Kamau (Jobu Univ.) put 6 seconds on Hakone Ekiden Third Stage winner Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) over the last km to win the D2 title in 1:02:58. In the D1 women's 5000 m, 2nd-year Sarah Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) scored a double title after breaking the 10000 m MR, winning in 15:44.85 by 5 seconds over Risa Yamazaki (Nittai Univ.). 3rd-year Victor Kimutai (Josai Univ.) took the D1 men's 5000 m title in 13:37.62, just over a second up on 2nd-year Shadrack Kipkemoi (Ni...

  The Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon aside, a quick roundup of results from this past weekend: At the Nittai University Time Trials , aka the Nittaidai Challenge Games, Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) led a great men's 10000 m A-heat in 27:20.05, with the top six men all going under 27:28. James Mutuku (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) was the only other collegiate runner among them at 3rd in 27:23.09, with 2:06 marathoner Hidekazu Hijikata (Asahi Kasei) the top Japanese finisher at 8th in 28:23.27. Mutuku's YGU teammate Brian Kipyegon won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:30.88, James Karuri (Aomori Yamada H.S.) next in 13:33.67 and Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) 3rd in 13:48.44. Soya Katayama (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) had the fastest 1500 m with a 3:46.19 to win the A-heat. In the women's races at Nittai, Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) was the only one to clear 16 minutes in the 5000 m A-heat, running 15:27.12 for the win. Lucy Nduta (Aomori Yamada H.S.) was likewise the only one u...

Stellar conditions and a solid fields meant times were going to be fast at the Ageo City Half Marathon , and in both the women's and men's races the front end took full advantage of the day. In the midst of the super-deep men's field Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , the top Mongolian in this summer's Budapest World Championships marathon and in last month's Hangzhou Asian Games marathon, ran steady and strong, splitting 33:29 at 10 km, 1:10:38 pace, before pushing the 2nd half. Khishigsaikhan crossed the finish line 1:10:32, 1:22 under the old course record, 3:35 ahead of 2nd-place Kana Kobayashi , and a massive 4:16 off the Mongolian women's national record. Khishigsaikhan is currently training in Japan and ran Ageo in prep for next month's Taipei City Marathon, where she was 3rd last year. The men's race went out hard, with Kenyan Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), NR holder Yusuke Ogura (Yakult) and the ambitious Rei Matsunaga (Hosei) leading the ...

  Rain and wind through most of the weekend meant conditions weren't great for the 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium, but five athletes still managed to deliver new meet records, three in long distance events. In Thursday's D1 women's pole vault , 1st-year Mitsuki Kobayashi (Nittai Univ.) had a solid debut with a meet record 4.06 m. Kobayashi was the only athlete to make it over 4.00 m, clearing it on her second attempt. She then passed on 4.05 m, the meet record set two years ago by Nittai's Jun Maekawa , to give 4.06 m a shot. Kobayashi cleared that on her second attempt too, walking away the new MR holder. Also Thursday, 1st-year Sarah Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) won the D1 women's 10000 m by over 30 seconds, lapping everyone in the race except runner-up Risa Yamazaki (Nittai Univ.). In her debut at the distance Wanjiru ran 32:17.19, almost four seconds under the previous record of 32:20.76 ...