japan running news

It's a relatively quiet weekend ahead in the middle of Japan's busiest road racing season, but there are still four important races going on in the southern part of the country. The biggest is the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships in Yamaguchi.  Men's national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) is entered in what would be his first race since catching the flu post-Fukuoka and leads the domestic component of a field that includes nine men with recent sub-1:02 times and a million more right on the cusp. If he runs his main competition is sub-60 man Paul Kuira (Konica Minolta). 61:30ish runners Keisuke Nakatani (Nissin Shokuhin) and Kengo Suzuki (Fujitsu) will be looking to make comebacks after long periods of injury.

The women's field is split between the half marathon and 10 km. Only three women in the half have broken 70 minutes before, Miho Shimizu (Hokuren) doing it the most recently with a 1:09:27 at Nationals in 2016. Shiori Yano (Canon AC K…

by Brett Larner

Course record holder Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA RC), past champion Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and Fukuoka International Marathon course record holder Tsegaye Kebede (Ethiopia) lead the men's field for the 5th edition of the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon on May 17, an event that has quickly surpassed the Sendai International Half Marathon as Japan's premier late-spring half marathon.  Former Toyota runner James Rungaru (Kenya) is back and with a 1:00:12 best looks like another contender up front, and Australian 10000 m national record holder Ben St. Lawrence is also in the field.  Japanese entries include sub-1:02 men Kenji Yamamoto (Team Mazda), Kenta Matsumoto (Team Toyota) and Masamichi Shinozaki (Team Hitachi Butsuryu), plus 2014 Asian Games marathon bronze medalist Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't).

On the women's side, Asian Games marathon gold medalist Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) returns to Japan after winning March's Nagoya Women'…

by Brett Larner

Tokyo-based 2014 Lisbon Half Marathon winner Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA RC) and little-known Visiline Jepkesho (Kenya) upstaged big names Zersenay Tadese (Eritrea) and Edna Kiplagat (Kenya) to take the men's and women's title at Sunday's fourth edition of the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon.

Tadese led through 5 km in 14:17 with Karoki relaxing two seconds back at the rear of the lead pack of Africans.  From there Karoki moved to the front, pushing the pace to a 14:06 split until by 10 km only he, Tadese and Japan-based Ethiopian Abayneh Ayele (Team Mazda) remained.  Things slowed over the next 5 km, but despite the slackened pace Karoki picked up a slight lead.  Heading into the last 5 km as temperatures rose Karoki said goodbye for good, dropping a 14:03 split from 15 km and 20 km to open his lead over world record holder Tadese to 1:14.  Closing at near-world record speed, Karoki crossed the line in 1:00:02, taking the win and Tadese's course record.  Tadese…

by Brett Larner

The organizers of the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon have put together one of the best men's fields in a Japanese half in recent memory for the race's fourth running on May 18.  World record holder Zersenay Tadese (Eritrea) returns after running a course record 1:00:31 last year to beat 2011-2012 winner Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC).  Mathathi is also back to go for a third title after sitting out the London Marathon with a minor injury.  The big addition to the mix is Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA RC), who made a successful transition to longer distances with a 59:58 debut to win the 2014 Lisbon Half despite problems in the early going. Mekubo Mogusu (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin) joins them under the hour mark as a top contender on paper, but with a recent best of only 1:01:54 it would take a pretty major return to form for him to compete with the three big names.

Also notable is the debut of 27:13 man Edward Waweru (Kenya/Team NTN).  Top Japanese men inc…

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120418-936102.html

translated by Brett Larner

Two days of track and field action kick off April 21 at the Hyogo Relay Carnival in Kobe's Universiade Memorial Stadium.  The first meet in the spring Grand Prix series, it is the official start of the track and field season and one of the meets used to select the Japanese Olympic team.  Athletes will compete in eleven different disciplines.

The women's 10000 m looks like the absolute roughest event of the meet.  "Track queen" Kayoko Fukushi (30, Team Wacoal) is absent, but 2011 World Championships team members Megumi Kinukawa (22, Mizuno) and Hikari Yoshimoto (22, Team Yamada Denki) will be leading the way in search of their second-straight national team appearances.  "White-skinned beauty" Kasumi Nishihara (23, Team Yamada Denki) and the pride of disaster-hit Miyagi Prefecture, Hiroko Shoi (31, Team Nihon ChemiCon), are also among the main contenders.…

by Brett Larner

2011 national corporate 10000 m champion Kasumi Nishihara (Team Yamada Denki) continued her unbeaten streak in her first year on the pro circuit, winning the National Sports Festival senior women's 5000 m Oct. 7 in Yamaguchi.  Nishihara ran in a tight pack that included collegiate 10000 m national record holder and former teammate Hikari Yoshimoto (Bukkyo Univ.) and Japan's top woman at the Daegu World Championships 5000 m, Hitomi Niiya (Sakura AC) before surging away in the last km to take the win in a new PB of 15:23.80.  Also continuing a strong season, Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) outran the rest of the pack for 2nd in 15:29.69, with Yoshimoto 3rd in 15:30.94.

The junior men's 5000 m was a closer race, the top four finishing within roughly three seconds of each other with a gap of ten seconds over the rest of the field.  Ken Yokote (Sakushin Gakuin H.S.) took the win in 14:04.49 over three members of top-ranked high schools, Kazuma Kubota (Kyushu G…

by Brett Larner
Ten days after staging a big comeback with a 15:09.96 national 5000 m title, the all-time sixth-best by a Japanese woman, Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno) did it again, running a solo 31:10.02 at the June 22 Hokuren Distance Challenge Abashiri Meet 10000 m to become the all-time fourth-fastest Japanese woman over the distance. More impressive than her time, which cleared the World Championships A-standard by over 30 seconds and makes a double in Daegu very likely, was the way she paced the race. After a 15:45 first half Kinukawa gradually ratcheted up her pace, negative splitting with a 15:25 second half which included 9:09 for the final 3000 m and a superb 2:58 final km. Although rain shortly before the race helped to lower temperatures, conditions at the finish were still a less-than-ideal 20 degrees with 81% humidity. In light of this and her conservative first half it's exciting to consider what might be in store for Kinukawa against a more competitive, aggress…

by Brett Larner
The first meet of the 2011 Hokuren Distance Challenge series took place June 19 in Kitami, Hokkaido. With cooler than usual temperatures 2006 world 10000 m junior champion and 2008 world junior XC champion Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda) delivered the biggest result of the evening, a solo 27:09.02 nearly a minute ahead of runner-up Alex Mwangi (Kenya/Team YKK). Jeilan's time was the third-fastest of the year by an Ethiopian, putting him into consideration for the Ethiopian team for August's Daegu World Championships. In 5th, third-year Yuki Maeda (Waseda Univ.), whose excellent run on the first day of this year's Hakone Ekiden was instrumental in keeping Waseda in contention for the win, became the latest Waseda runner to break 29 minutes as he clocked a PB of 28:54.34. Ten men on the roster of Waseda's 2010-2011 squad held PBs under 29 minutes.
In the women's 5000 m, 2011 East Japan Corporate T&F 10000 m champion Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon …

by Brett Larner
The corporate regional spring track championships wrapped up this weekend with the East Japan Jitsugyodan T&F Championships in hot, humid and windy Kumagaya, Saitama. The big news at the meet came in the women's 5000 m, where 10000 m junior national record holder Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno) emerged from nearly four years of illness and injury to take her first competitive win in memory, running 15:37.50 to beat Kenyan Felista Wanjugu (Team Univ. Ent.) and World Championships marathon team leader Yoshimi Ozaki (Team Daiichi Seimei). Although still short of a World Championships B-standard, Kinukawa's run was her first time under 15:40 in almost four years and a large step in the right direction ahead of next month's National T&F Championships. After the race Kinukawa, who was a star at Sendai Ikuei H.S. at the same time as the late Samuel Wanjiru (Kenya), told journalist Tatsuo Terada, "I didn't think I was ready to run like this. It…

by Brett Larner
Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) takes the men's Grand Prix 10000 m in a world-leading 27:23.85. Click event headers in results below for complete video of other events.

In the wake of a spate of road race cancellations following last month's disasters, the 10000 m was the focus of this year's Hyogo Relay Carnival, Apr. 23-24 at Kobe's Universiade Memorial Stadium. In addition to the regularly-programmed men's and women's Grand Prix 10000 m and the men's Asics Challenge 10000 m, effectively the meet's B-heat, this year's race featured an additional 10000 m for university men looking to qualify for the 10000 m at this summer's World University Games and a separate men's and women's 10000 m qualifier for the World University Games half marathon.
With a shortage of quality 10000 m races worldwide the focus in the Grand Prix and Asics Challenge 10000 m events for both Japanese runners and Japan-resident Africans was…

by Brett Larner

American Jason Lehmkuhle in a sprint finish against Toyoyuki Abe meters before winning the 2011 Ome 30 km.

Jason Lehmkuhle won a tight sprint finish over Team NTT Nishi Nihon's Toyoyuki Abe at the 2011 Ome 30 km Road Race to become the first American to win the prestigious race since Greg Meyer's 1983 victory. Lehmkuhle was aggressive throughout the race, leading the field of over 15000 through the early kilometers and remaining at the head of the pack over the difficult ups and downs through the middle 20 km.

The pack, initially nine-strong, whittled down to a core of five by halfway. With roughly 5 km to go Lehmkuhle surged, first dropping eventual 4th-placer Atsushi Ikawa (Team Otsuka Seiyaku), then frequent leader Ryotaro Nitta (Team Konica Minolta). Local boy Daisuke Shimizu (Team Kanebo) was the next to fall, leaving only Abe at Lehmkuhle's side. The pair rounded the final righthand corner together with Lehmkuhle on the inside, and in the last sprint to …

by Brett Larner

In the absence of any serious competition, Madoka Ogi (Team Juhachi Ginko) won the women's race at the Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon Sept. 5. Ogi's time of 1:14:17 was unremarkable but good enough to win by a margin of nearly a minute and a half over a field which included Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist Constantina Dita (Romania) and world trail running champion Fiona Docherty (New Zealand). Along with Seattle winner Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz), Ogi is the second Japanese woman to win a Rock 'n' Roll-brand half marathon this year. Japanese men also fared decently in Virginia Beach, taking five of the top ten spots led by 5000 m and 30 km national record holder Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) in 1:03:57 for 4th behind Kenyan Yusuf Songoka's 1:02:46 winning performance. Click here to read the official press release on Songoka and Ogi's wins.

Across the ocean, formerly Japan-based Africans took both of the top spot…

http://www.47news.jp/CN/200911/CN2009112901000236.html

translated by Brett Larner

At the 2009 Shanghai Marathon on Nov. 29, invited athlete Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) won the women's half-marathon division in a time of 1:12:00. General division runner Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) was 2nd. Yamanashi Gakuin University graduate Kota Araki (Self-Defense Forces) was 3rd in the men's race.

Gashaw Asfaw (Ethiopia) took his second-straight Shanghai win with a time of 2:10:10 in the men's marathon, while Chinese runner Wei Yanan won the women's race in 2:27:49.

by Brett Larner

The Nagano Prefecture team staged a coup at Sunday's 25th anniversary East Japan Women's Ekiden in Fukushima, clocking 2:18:36 for the 9-stage, 42.195 km course to beat two-time defending champion Tokyo by over a minute and take its first-ever win at the regional championships.

Nagano's Yuko Shimizu, a member of the Japanese national team for the International Chiba Ekiden later this month, got her team off to a strong start with a 2nd-place finish on the 6 km first leg, one second behind Aomori Prefecture's Miho Notagashira in 19:08. Tokyo's Chisa Fujimoto languished far behind, finishing 13th out of 17 in 19:56. While Tokyo spent the rest of the ekiden trying to claw its way back to the front, Nagano's second leg runner Yuka Hakoyama overtook Aomori's Nao Sasaki to build a lead which Nagano never relinquished.

The biggest excitement of the day came on the anchor stage where Tokyo's Azusa Nojiri, a former pro XC skier who began running pro…

http://www.iaaf.org/WHM09/news/kind=100/newsid=54552.html

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/090706/oth0907061745029-n1.htm

translated by Brett Larner

On July 6 Rikuren announced the names of the five men and five women who will make up the Japanese national team for this year's World Half Marathon Championships to be held on Oct. 11 in Birmingham, U.K. Leading the men's team is Beijing Olympics and Berlin World Championships marathoner Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku), the half marathon national record holder. The women's team will be headed by Berlin World Championships marathon medal favorite Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren), a double Beijing Olympian on the track. For all the athletes chosen for the team, the World Half represents the next step in their careers.

2009 World Half Marathon Championships Team Lineup
Men
Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku)
PB - 1:00:25 (Udine '07) - NR
2nd, Jitsugyodan Half Marathon '09 - top Japanese
9th, Sapporo Int'l Half Marathon '09 - top Japanese
Yoshinori Oda (Team Toyota)
PB - 1:0…

http://www.kahoku.co.jp/news/2009/05/20090510t14030.htm
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/news/f-sp-tp0-20090510-492731.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On a Rikuren-certified 21.0975 km course starting at the Sendai Civic Track and Field Grounds in Sendai's Miyagino Ward and ending in front of City Hall in Aoba Ward, Berlin World Championships marathon team member Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) ran 1:08:50 to win the 19th Sendai International Half Marathon on May 10. The mother of a nearly three year old daughter, Akaba's first win in Sendai fittingly came on Mother's Day.

Running in cloudy but warm and humid conditions which saw few athletes clock their best times, Akaba dropped the three others in the lead pack after only 8 km. 2nd place finisher Julia Mombi (Team Aruze) was over 2 1/2 minutes behind, while Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) came up from 45 seconds behind at 10 km to take 3rd, just missing catching Mombi but earning one of the only PBs in the top 10.…