japan running news

This weekend was the first in the last month of qualifying for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials. People who haven't made it yet have until Apr. 30 to squeeze in one more race under 2:24:00 or averaging under 2:28:00 with one other race inside the qualification window for women and 2:08:30 or 2:11:00 for men.

Natsuki Omori (Daihatsu) and Hanae Tanaka (Shiseido) were at the Rotterdam Marathon to go for the two-race average, Omori needing to run 2:26:45 and Tanaka 2:28:20. Despite on-target first halves both came up short, Omori running 2:29:58 and Tanaka 2:39:55. Omori's time was the fastest so far this year outside Japan by a Japanese woman.

At the Vienna City Marathon, Hideyuki Ikegami (Aminosaurus) went through halfway on track for a sub-2:10, but the pace proved too much for him as he dropped over the second half to finish in 2:15:24.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

The National Women's Ekiden was the weekend's biggest race, but across the country four half marathons saw decently competitive men's action.

At Tochigi's Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon, as in the last few years Hakone Ekiden runner-up Aoyama Gakuin University ran its B-team of Hakone non-starters, this year with company from the team that beat it, Tokai University. AGU swept the top ten, first-year Takayuki Iida taking the top spot in 1:03:10 with teammate Shuya Iwami also getting under 64 minutes. Tokai seemed to treat the day more as a workout, but head coach Hayashi Morozumi, 52, took the chance to get in on the action too, running the 10 km division in 43:04.

In Tokyo, the High Tech Half Marathon celebrated its 20th running with the edition of a marathon division. Independent Hideyuki Ikegami (Aminosaurus) won the men's half in 1:05:08. Club runner Eri Suzuki (Noshiro Yamamoto T&F Assoc.) ran the fastest women's time of the weekend, 1:19:34, to win…

One of the world's ten biggest marathons with nearly 30,000 finishers, his year's Osaka Marathon takes place Nov. 25. At the elite level Osaka has carved an interesting place for itself as a sort of unofficial amateur Japanese women's national championships, with just about all of Japan's sub-2:40 amateur women entered. 2017 winner Yumiko Kinoshita (Tokyo T&F Assoc.) leads 6 of last year's top 7 including Mitsuko Ino (Linkstyle), who finished just 1 second behind Kinoshita in the last edition, and 2016 Osaka winner Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.). But they have serious competition ahead of them this time in the form of quasi-corporate leaguer Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead), fresh from a 2:30:09 PB and CR win at the Nov. 11 Fukuoka Marathon, and 2:31:09 Moroccan Soud Kanbouchia. First-timer Felista Wambui (Kenya) is a wildcard. The high-volume racer Yoshitomi is the heavy favorite, the only question really being whether she can finally break 2:30 for the first time.

The…

As championship ekiden season wraps up Japan’s athletes have started the transition to the winter road season, with four decently competitive half marathons highlighting the first half of January.

At the hilly Okukuma Half Marathon, locally-based Africans Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) and Melaku Abera (Kurosaki Harima) duked it out one-on-one, Karemi through in a series of surges in the last 5 km before breaking away decisively with 1 km to go. Crossing the finish line in 1:01:48, Karemi took nearly two minutes off the course record with Abera just under 62 for 2nd.

2nd on the Hakone Ekiden’s Seventh Stage less than two weeks ago, Masanori Sumida (Nittai Univ.) outran corporate league competition Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) and Shohei Kurata (GMO) to take the top Japanese spot at 4th in 1:03:11. Spending most of the race behind a pack led by 2015 National Univeristy Half Marathon champion Tadashi Isshiki (GMO) and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), Yuki Kawauchi (Sai…

Priding itself on having one of the flattest courses in the country, the 37th Tsukuba Marathon took place Nov. 26 at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki. Just four weeks after a course record-setting win at the Toyama Marathon, 2012 London Olympics marathoner Arata Fujiwara, 36, won the men's race in 2:18:08.

With a 4th-place finish on the anchor stage of last year's Hakone Ekiden to his name, Akihiro Kaneko led a group of six through 30 km before the action began. "I didn't want to fall apart mid-race, so I was careful to keep it conservative and stay in the group," Fujiwara said post-race. At 39 km he suddenly took off without warning, running alone the rest of the way to the finish line. "I think my last kilometer was about 2:50," he said. His experience showed in the ease with which he put away the 23-year-old Kaneko and other younger athletes. "The time wasn't great, but it gives me hope for the future," Fujiwara smiled.

With regard to the…

#1-ranked Kaleab Ghilagabr became the first Eritrean winner in the Osaka Marathon's short seven-year history, leading 29,359 finishers across the line Sunday in a PB 2:12:03, while club runner Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) had to run a minute-plus PB 2:34:38 to win an exciting battle between Japan's six best amateur women by 1 second.

Ghilagabr set off accompanied by unsponsored amateur Hideyuki Ikegami, an unusual independent who got attention by beating Yuki Kawauchi in a half marathon in 2014 and went on to be mentored by 2:07:48 Olympian Arata Fujiwara. In April this year Ikegami made his marathon debut at the Hannover Marathon but finished in a disappointing 2:30:15 that didn't reflect the quality suggested by his 1:03:09 half best and 1:31:53 PB for 30 km. 
The pair ran 2:10:30 pace through 15 km, PB pace for both, before Ikegami began to slip. Ghilagabr pushed on alone, holding on to 2:10 pace until well into the second half before beginning to slow. Ikegami was caught b…

One of the world's ten biggest marathons, in its six runnings to date the Osaka Marathon has continued to avoid the addition of a world-class elite field of the same caliber as at equivalently-sized races like Tokyo, Berlin and Boston. In place of doling out cash to pros, Osaka's women's field has developed into a sort of national championship race for amateur women.

In the field this year are six, probably all six, of the amateur Japan women to have broken 2:40 in the last three years. Last year's top three, Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.), Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) and Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) lead the way at the 2:36 +/- level, with a second trio of Marie Imada (Iwatani Sangyo), Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishin Nihon) and Chika Tawara (RxL) all around the 2:39 level.

Last year's winner Sakamoto and 3rd placer Yoshimatsu squared off in September at Germany's Volksbank Muenster Marathon, Yoshimatsu tying Sakamoto's Osaka winning time of 2:36:02 to take 3rd over …

by Brett Larner

Japanese runners turned up at three international races over the weekend.  Every year top-placing finishers at November's Ohtawara Marathon get send to the Paris Marathon.  Having turned down the 2016 trip after the Paris terror attacks, two-time Ohtawara women's winner Hiroko Yoshitomi went this time, taking 9th in 2:38:46 in her fifth marathon of 2017.  Men's winner Takahiro Gunji went under 2:20 for the first time, 21st in a PB 2:19:01 just behind Kansuke Morihashi, who took 20th in 2:18:22.

At the Hannover Marathon, Hideyuki Ikegami, a young independent who has received support from London Olympian Arata Fujiwara in recent years, made his marathon debut.  A 1:03:09 half marathoner, Ikegami came into Hannover with a 1:31:53 win at the Osaka 30 km in December and altitude training in Kenya with Fujiwara after that behind him, but despite starting out at an ambitious 2:10 pace Ikegami slowed progressively.  Between 25 and 30 km he ran into serious trouble,…

by Brett Larner

2014 was a mixed year for Japanese distance running.  Most of the good came from the under-25 generation that will be at its peak at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.  More than a dozen high school boys including one 16-year-old broke 14 minutes for 5000 m, and at least four high school girls ran 9:01 or better for 3000 m, one winning Youth Olympics gold while doing it.  A 19-year-old woman ran an under-20 Japanese record 2:27:12, and a 22-year-old set a collegiate national record of 2:26:46.  Another 22-year-old went under 9 minutes for 3000 m.  Japanese university men ran times from 3:39.56 for 1500 m to 1:00:50 for the half marathon to an incredible 1:28:52 collegiate national record for 30 km by a runner just turned 20.  A 23-year-old set a 3000 m NR of 7:40.09, and a 24-year-old ran the fastest 10000 m ever by a Japanese man on Japanese soil, 27:38.99.  Among older runners ten Japanese men broke 2:10 for the marathon a total of eleven times, the fastest among them, 2:08:0…

http://www.saga-s.co.jp/news/saga_sports.0.2638394.article.html
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/e-japan/aomori/news/20140223-OYT8T00881.htm
http://www.komaspo.com/4630
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/e-japan/kyoto/news/20140223-OYT8T00902.htm

translated and edited by Brett Larner

A total of 1700 men and women of all ages ran in the half marathon, 10 km, 3 km and 2 km divisions at the 63rd running of the Kashima Yutoku Half Marathon on Feb. 23.  In the men's open half marathon division, Masaya Taguchi (Toyo University) took 47 seconds off the course record to win in 1:03:05.  Taguchi was responsible for getting Toyo off to a good start on the First Stage at last month's Hakone Ekiden, playing a big part in the team's win.  Bringing the same intensity to his course record run, he thoroughly dominated the men's half marathon.

Olympian and university 5000 m national record holder Kensuke Takezawa (Team Sumitomo Kaijo) was also in the race.  "He has been an inspiration since I was in ju…

http://www.kyoto-np.co.jp/top/article/20140121000033

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Kameoka native and long distance runner Hideyuki Ikegami (20, Kyoto T&F Assoc.), won a half marathon in Tokyo on Jan. 12.  In scoring the win he took down famed "civil servant runner" Yuki Kawauchi (26, Saitama Pref. Gov't).  Ikegami is only a second-year at Kyoto Kyoiku University but is already forging his own way of doing things outside the school's track and field team in pursuit of his dream: "I want to take on the world in the marathon."

At the Jan. 12 Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon, Ikegami took more than two minutes off his PB to run his 1:03:09 winning time.  In the middle part of the race he threw in a long surge to break Kawauchi, opening a convincing 1:08 lead over him.  It was only Ikegami's third half marathon but a major upset, and post-race he was surrounded by reporters. "Kawauchi always looks like he's in pain when he runs," Ikegam…

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20140112-1243077.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20140112-1243078.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20140112-1243079.html
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20140113-OHT1T00039.htm

translated and edited with additional background information by Brett Larner

At the 15th Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon, Jan. 12 along the Arakawa River in northern Tokyo, unknown university runner Hideyuki Ikegami (20, 2nd-yr., Kyoto Kyoiku Univ.) ran 1:03:09, opening a massive lead over defending champion Yuki Kawauchi (26, Saitama Pref. Gov't) and 2012 winner Kazuyoshi Tokumoto (Team Monteroza) to take the win. Around 10 km he attacked with a series of surges before pulling away to run the final 10 km alone. Thinking, "What do you know, Kawauchi's mortal after all," Ikegami broke the finish line tape with a lead of 1:08, his time a PB by more than two and a half mi…