japan running news

It seemed at the time that last year's Hakone Ekiden had to have been a peak of some kind, with 4 new course records between Hakone's 10 stages, a new Day Two CR, a new overall CR, and all-time top 3 performances on 5 other stages and the Day One course. But this year went even higher. 5 stages, both Day One and Day Two, and the overall course had their records broken, 3 of the stages that didn't have their CR broken had an all-time #2 performance, 2 of them less than 10 seconds off the CR, and the other 2 stages had an all-time #3 performance. Every stage had at least 2 all-time top 6 performances, the Tenth Stage had 6 in its all-time top 10, and the opening First Stage saw 9 of its 10 fastest-ever runs. The 1:07:16 CR on the uphill Fifth Stage rightfully earned Asahi Kuroda from overall winner Aoyama Gakuin University the MVP award at this year's Hakone , but the other 4 stage CR, 1:00:28 for the 21.3 km First Stage by Koku Gakuin University 's Rui Aoki , 1:05...

Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara  took the opposite of the usual approach on Day One of the 102nd Hakone Ekiden yesterday, starting with his weakest two runners and building up to his absolute best. First runner Hikaru Ogawara was only 16th of 21, but Day One anchor Asahi Kuroda delivered one of the best performances in Hakone history on the uphill Fifth Stage, breaking its CR by 2 almost 2 minutes and coming from over a kilometer behind to give AGU the Day One win in CR time. With AGU's 9th win in the last 12 years and its second threepeat in the works, it blew apart the rest of the field over the 5-stage, 109.6 km Day Two course. Last year AGU's Akimu Nomura became the first runner to break 57 minutes on the 20.8 km Sixth Stage that kicks off the second day of the legendary race, starting at 731 m, climbing to 874 m in the first 5 km, then dropping to near sea level by its end. Popular speculation pre-race was that AGU would get caught by at least one of ...

Pretty much every year I write something about how the level of the college athletes at the Hakone Ekiden just keeps going up and up. This year too, the performances by collegiate men at February's Marugame Half and last month's string of 10000 m time trial meets were off the charts. There's got to be a peak somewhere, but it doesn't look like it's anywhere close. How much have things really progressed? Let's take a quick look at the level of the fields at some of the Hakones since 2005. That year there were 19 college teams and one select team, so for the sake of consistency these numbers represent the top 19-ranked teams in the field at each Hakone. With Hakone happening on Jan. 2-3 every year, the listed years are the Hakone year, with the performances listed happening in the calendar year before that. Progression in the 5000 m from 2005 to 2020 was pretty steady, the largest jump happening between 2005 and 2010 at about 3 sec/km. After almost no change from...

Ekiden season rolls on with Sunday's Ageo City Half Marathon . Most of the universities bound for the Hakone Ekiden, including this season's Izumo Ekiden winner Koku Gakuin University and National University Ekiden winner Komazawa University send big squads to Ageo every year so their coaches can thin down the list of contenders for their 16-name Hakone entry roster. Since 2012 there's been the extra motivation for top talent to run Ageo in JRN's partnership program between Ageo and March's United Airlines NYC Half to bring the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo and their coaches to run in NYC. That's had an impact, with people like this year's Berlin Marathon runner-up Akira Akasaki and former half marathon and marathon NR holder Yuta Shitara having gone through the program. You never really know from the entry lists who's actually going to show up to run in Ageo, but it's always an incredibly deep race with no parallel anywhere excep...

As if the results in Marugame weren't enough, university runners played a major role in the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon too. Expectations were that last year's Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi , captain of this season's Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden winner Koku Gakuin University and who set the collegiate and debut marathon records of 2:06:18 in winning Osaka, was going to dominate the race and the massive lead pack keyed off him most of the way. By Beppu standards pacing was fast, skimming just under 3:00/km through a 1:03:17 first half and 1:29:48 at 30 km. The lead pack was still 9-deep at that point, with Kenyans Vincent Kipchumba and Dominic Nyairo , last year's winner Derese Workneh , and 6 Japanese men, 2 from Koku Gakuin, 2 from Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University and 2 from the corporate leagues. Hirabayashi was quick to attack after the pacers stopped at 30 km, shaking off everyone except Kipchumba, 2:06:57 man Shohei Otsuk...

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi...