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...

On Feb. 7 the Himeji Castle Marathon announced that it has been canceled for the third year in a row. A total of 6200 people had been entered to run in the full marathon and accompanying fun runs on Feb. 27, but with no end in sight to the rise of new cases in the coronavirus' 6th wave organizers were forced to cancel. Runners who had already done almost all of their training and local residents who had been excited about the race's return could only shrug their disappointment off with a sigh. "Up until a few weeks ago I really thought I was going to get to run this time," said a 54-year-old local resident who had been entered. "The course is mostly flat and very easy to run, so this was a very popular race. I might do the virtual race instead, but I want to see if my friends are going to do it too first." Another entrant, a 42-year-old who owns a specialty shop making shoe insoles, has been training hard since December in the belief that the race would ha...

A draft revision of the Hyogo Prefectural Government's 2022-23 administrative and financial plan released on Dec. 16 includes elimination of the prefecture's position as a co-organizer of the Kobe Marathon . Following Kobe's 10th running, scheduled for November, 2022, the prefectural government will step back from an organizational role and will instead support part of the race's expenses as an event sponsor.  The Kobe Marathon began in November, 2011 as a celebration of the city's recovery from the major earthquake that struck it in 1995. A highly popular event, it attracts 80,000 applications for the 20,000 entries available. Operational costs are roughly 700 million yen (~$6.2 million USD)  each edition. The prefectural and city governments contributed around 90 million yen apiece (~$800,000 USD) , with the remainder covered by corporate sponsors and entry fees. The prefecture and city have also both had representatives on the race's organizing committee. In...