japan running news

by Brett Larner

Portugal's Sport Zone Porto Half Marathon celebrates its 10th running with a strong men's field.  Silas Kimutai (Kenya) leads four men with recent times under 61 minutes followed closely by five more under 62.  Hiroshi Ichida (Team Asahi Kasei) and Shun Inoura (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) lead the third group of sub-63 men followed by countryman Yusei Nakao (Smiley Angel AC), the top Japanese man at May's Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon for the last three years in a row.

Martha Akeno (Kenya) is the top-ranked woman in the field under 71 minutes but could get some competition from Japan's Ayumi Kubo (Team Kagoshima Ginko) who ran 1:11:29 last December.  Nao Isaka (Team Hitachi) should provide a good target for top Portuguese woman Filomena Costa with just 25 seconds separating their recent bests.

10th Sport Zone Porto Half Marathon
Porto, Portugal, 9/18/16
times listed are best within last three years

Men
Silas Kimutai (Kenya) - 1:00:17 (2014)
Mustapha El Aziz (Morocco) - …

by Brett Larner

Japan's best spring distance meet, the Golden Games in Nobeoka came up short on Rio qualifying marks but still delivered some fast times with the winners of all the major races running PBs to get to the top.

Ethiopian newcomer Shuru Bulo (Team Toto) was the only woman to clear the 15:24.00 women's 5000 m Rio standard, winning the women's A-heat in a PB 15:18.54.  Top Japanese woman Sakie Arai (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) was far short of the mark in 15:42.29 for 4th.  After having helped Sera H.S. break the legendary Samuel Wanjiru-era National High School Boys Ekiden course record last December, Kenyan Paul Kamais (Team Chugoku Denryoku) continued to dominate in the 5th week of his pro career, leading four Japan-based Africans under the 13:25.00 men's Rio standard to win the 5000 m C-heat in a PB 13:17.50.  Hopes of another Japanese man getting the standard went unrequited, but top Japanese man Hazuma Hattori (Toyo Univ.) still delivered a solid 13:34.64, 4 se…

by Brett Larner
videos by Ekiden News



Two months after his 3rd-place finish on the Hakone Ekiden's most competitive stage helped put Aoyama Gakuin University in position for the overall win and a month after running a 1:02:09 PB at the Marugame Half, 20-year-old AGU second-year Tadashi Isshiki scored his first national title with a 1:02:11 win at the 18th National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park.  After record-setting depth last year when a world record 207 men broke 1:06:00 the National University Half blew minds again this year, the top 12 all breaking 1:02:30 and 27 collegiate men going under 1:03:00.  With perfect conditions today the field excelled, completely rewriting the record books as 265 men went under 1:06:00.

With places on the Japanese team for this summer's World University Games half marathon for the top three finishers and a bigger dream hovering in the distance 5 1/2 years away the massive pack went out fast an…

by Brett Larner
video and photos by Ekiden News

Second only to May's Prefontaine Classic, one of the world's few remaining ultra-deep 10000 m races went down Saturday in the misty mountains of Tokyo's western suburb of Hachioji at the Hachioji Long Distance Time Trials meet.  Japan-based Million Zewdie (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) ran a PB 27:36.35, the fastest time by an Ethiopian man in 2014, to lead 11 men sub-28 in one of the big tuneups for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships.  Right with him was Kenyan Bernard Kimani (Team Yakult) with a 27:36.60 PB for 2nd, while a few strides back Zewdie's teammate Kassa Mekashaw (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) added to the PB haul in 3rd in 27:38.93.

The biggest news from the Japanese point of view came in 4th, where Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei), already the fastest Japanese collegiate ever with a 27:44.30 in the U.K. in 2011, ran 27:38.99 for 4th, all-time #5 in the Japanese record books and the fastest …

by Brett Larner

A local Ugandan newspaper as tweeted by WUCCC organizers FISU.

Hosts Uganda dominated the 19th edition of the World University Cross Country Championships Mar. 22 in Entebbe, winning both individual gold medals and the women's team gold.  The women's race, four laps of a roughly 1.5 km loop, went out as a race between Uganda and neighboring Kenya, with Kenya's Sheila Kandie leading Uganda's Winnie Nanyondo and Dorcus Ajok through the first lap before Nanyondo moved to the front.  Uganda's third woman, Prim Twikiriza, sat a few seconds back in the chase back with Japan's Ayumi Uehara, Fuyuka Kimura and Natsumi Ozawa.

On the third lap Nanyondo surged, covering it in 4:56.24, to drop both Kandie and Ajok, and from there she ran alone all the way to the finish to claim gold by a margin of nearly 30 seconds.  Ajok also got clear of Kandie on the third lap for silver, but on the fourth lap she was nearly run down by Twikiriza who surged hard to shake o…

by Brett Larner

With Japan's fiscal and academic year wrapping up at the end of March the majority of the country's corporate runners are in a holding pattern until track season gets underway in April.  Collegiate runners dominate what's left of the season, with Sunday's National University Women's Half Marathon Championships, held in conjunction with the Matsue Ladies' Half Marathon and 10 km, marking the last major domestic race of the season. Winning times at the National Championships have been in the 71-minute range the last few years.  The lack of a World University Games this year could bring down that leading edge, but if the record-setting depth at last week's National University Men's Half Marathon Championships was any indication the women's race should still be deeply competitive.

2013 Ageo City Half Marathon winner Takashi Ichida (Daito Bunka University) and 2013 National University Track and Field Championships 1500 m winner Ikuto Yuf…