japan running news

After a great season so far that has included a win on the New Year Ekiden First Stage in January and a 1:00:58 PB at the National Corporate Half in February, Shumpei Tomita (Logisteed) added another one with a 1:00:52 CR for the win at the China Airlines Gold Coast Half Marathon . Pacer James Hansen and 2-time winner Brett Robinson went out fast, with Australian 10 km NR holder Sam Clifford and Chuo University student Daichi Fujita closing it up to make a lead quartet that hit 5 km in 14:12. Clifford soon dropped off, and when Hansen stepped off at 10 km in 28:44 it was down to just Robinson and Fujita. Fujita, who came into the race with only a 1:03:57 best, couldn't hang with the more experienced Robinson and faded, although to his credit he hung on for a new PB of 1:02:55 in 12th. Robinson looked like he had a 3rd title down, but by 15 km, hit in 43:33, he'd been run down by the front end of the chase pack, Tomita, veteran Kazuto Kawabata and debuting Australian Ed ...

Over the weekend the Gold Coast Marathon announced its elite fields for the China Airlines Half Marathon the day before the main race. For the last couple of years there's been a friendly rivalry between Gold Coast and Tasmania's Launceston Half a month earlier to produce the fastest times ever on Australian soil. Gold Coast has had the women's record for a few years since American Keira D'Amato ran 1:06:39 in 2023, and last year it added the men's record with a 1:01:08 from Andy Buchanan . Launceston took the men's record this year with a 1:00:41 from Haftu Strintzos , and women's winner Izzi Batt-Doyle ran a course record 1:08:46, the fastest time ever by an Australia in Australia. NR holder Batt-Doyle is the favorite again in the women's race at Gold Coast. Women-only half marathon NR holder Rino Goshima has run as fast as 1:08:03, but since moving up to the marathon she hasn't anything near that kind of time, and a 33:12 at the B.A.A. 10 km ...

Australians Isobel Batt-Doyle and Haftu Strintzos turned in record-breaking performances to win the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania. Running with a private male pacer, NR holder Batt-Doyle dusted the field with the fastest half marathon ever by an Australian woman on Australian soil, a 1:08:46 CR that put her 2 and a half minutes ahead of runner-up Genevieve Gregson . Last year's runner-up Yumi Yoshikawa was almost a minute back from Gregson in 3rd in 1:12:03, but was almost run down by club runner Ayaka Shimoyamada . Starting slow in her international debut, Shimoyamada moved up from 7th over the 2nd half of the race to finish 4th in 1:12:06, kicking hard in the home straight to try to catch Yoshikawa and momentarily blacking out after finishing. Kaho Onishi was 7th in 1:12:45 in her own international debut. The men's half had pacing set at 2:53/km to try to deliver the first-ever sub-61 half marathon on Australian soil. CR holde...

Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...

The elite field has been announced for the Feb. 1 Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon . The women's race has a good matchup up front between 2 of the stars of last year's race, Dolphine Omare and Isobel Batt-Doyle , and British duo Eilish McColgan and Charlotte Purdue . The current #1 woman in Japanese collegiate athletics, Daito Bunka University 's Sarah Wanjiru , and sub-15 5000 m runner Susan Kamotho who has yet to run even 10000 m are interesting debuts, with Japanese hopes pretty much resting on Tokyo World Championships marathon team members Yuka Ando and Kana Kobayashi . Last year's runner-up Emmanuel Maru is the favorite in the men's race, but right behind him there's a tasty duel between collegiate half marathon record co-holders Richard Etir and Kotaro Shinohara . Past Fukuoka International Marathon winner Sondre Moen , Dennis Kipruto , Yuma Nishizawa and Josphat Ledama Kisaisa round out the front end of the field. The relocation of th...

Heavy-duty favorite Sheila Chepkirui took the win at Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon , pulling away after 30 km to cruise in for 1st in 2:20:40. Erratic pacing early saw the first and second groups only seconds apart for much of the first half of the race, the top group slower than planned and the 2nd group a bit ahead of schedule. At halfway in 1:10:37 the front group included Chepkirui, #2-ranked Ruti Aga and last year's runner-up Eunice Chumba , and Japanese contingent Sayaka Sato , Rika Kaseda , Natsuki Omori and Mao Uesugi . Omori was the first to drop, then Uesugi, then Aga, who ultimately dropped out before 30 km. When the pacers stopped at 30 km Chepkirui made a move that dropped Kaseda and strung out Chumba and Sato behind her, but all four came back together once before another surge put Kaseda away for good. As Chepkirui inched away Sato and Chumba passed each other repeatedly, and Chumba could only watch as the top Japanese runner got away from her again thi...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon , the world's largest women-only marathon and the last race in the selection cycle for September's Tokyo World Championships, happens Sunday. Weather conditions are looking better than what they had in Tokyo and Osaka the last two weekends, 7˚ at the start and rising to 12˚ with sunny skies. The wind looks a bit stronger than ideal, but it could be worse. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. Sunday local time, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch the TVer streaming . One option for  a leaderboard is here , and another here . We'll have some coverage on @JRNLive . Just like last time around there are three Ethiopian and Kenyan-born athletes at the top list, this time it being sub-2:20 women Sheila Chepkirui , winner in NYC last year, and Ruti Aga , winner in Xiamen in January, and last year's Nagoya runner-up Eunice Chebichii Chumba . But last year Yuka Ando still pulled off the win, so there's a c...

The Mar. 9 Nagoya Women's Marathon is the last big elite marathon on Japan's winter schedule, this year with a trio of sub-2:20 runners up front, Sheila Chepkirui , Aga Ruti and Hitomi Niiya . It being a home soil World Championships selection cycle there's decent depth behind them, and 2:21 runner Rika Kaseda looks especially on her game right now with a 1:07:53 PB at the Marugame Half earlier this month. Australian Isobel Batt-Doyle is also trending in the right direction, having run 2:22:59 in her last go in Valencia in December. The debut list is pretty interesting, with women-only half marathon NR holder Rino Goshima , 1:08:03, making her debut, as are 1:09:01 Australian Leanne Pompeani and track runner Yuna Wada . 2018 World Half Marathon silver medalist Pauline Kamulu isn't technically debuting, having run 2:31:04 at last summer's hot and humid Hokkaido Marathon, but with a 1:07:33 in Marugame ahead of Kaseda she has a lot of potential to go 10 minutes ...

In its 77th edition the Marugame Half Marathon had what had to have been the best conditions in its history, and the deep fields made the most of it in both the men's and women's races. 15 hours of heavy rain that let up 2 hours before the start combined with single-digit temperatures and almost no wind to make a cool mist that hung over the area throughout the race. The men's race was hot from the start, 2 pacers taking it through 5 km in 14:05 and 10 km in 28:02, 59:09 pace vs the Japanese NR of 1:00:00. That kind of heat burned off all but 6 people, CR holder Alexander Mutiso , Emmanuel Maru , James Mutuku , Tomoki Ota , Kotaro Shinohara and Kento Baba , but Bedan Karoki and others including a trio of university men were only another few second behind. Baba, a Rikkyo University runner with a PB of only 1:02:35, was the first to drop off, followed by Mutuku from Yamanashi Gakuin University . Ota and Shinohara, training partners under Komazawa University great Hiroaki...

American women now own the course records at both Australia's ASICS Half Marathon and Gold Coast Marathon. With expert pacing from local great Ben St. Lawrence , former U.S. marathon NR holder Keira D'Amato negative split a 1:06:39 national record and Australian all-comers record to win the women's race in the half marathon Saturday. With a group of sub-elite men in town St. Lawrence took D'Amato through the first two 5 km splits in 15:52 and 15:55, just off pace for the 1:06:52 NR with a 1:07:03 projection. From there they incremented ever so slightly faster, with 15:49 and 15:45 splits to put D'Amato at 20 km in 1:03:22 and a 1:06:51 projected finish time. Just holding what she had would have put her under the record, but D'Amato went hard over the last 1.0975 km, covering it in 3:17, or 2:59/km pace. And with that, she had a new NR and the fastest-ever time by a woman on Australian soil to her name. "The crowd support was great," she said post-rac...

With temps in the high teens the Nagoya Women's Marathon was warmer than ideal, but that didn't stop the expected protagonists from dominating, and in fast times. 2022 winner Ruth Chepngetich soloed the race the entire way, going ahead of the pacers in the first kilometer and splitting between 16:14 and 16:19 for five of the six 5 km splits up to 30 km. She couldn't quite hold it together enough over the last 10 km to give her 2:17:18 CR from last year a serious go, fading from 1:08:47 at halfway to a 2:18:08 for 1st. But that was still enough for her to win by over a kilometer and take home another $250,000. The main chase group of over a dozen skimmed just under 17 minutes per 5 km through a 1:11:20 half split before top-ranked Japan woman Ayuko Suzuki took off when the last pacer stopped. Deshun Zhang and Mao Uesugi initially went with her but soon lost touch, leaving Suzuki to drop an impressive 48-second negative split for a 2:21:52 PB, 10 seconds better than her ...

In its 75th anniversary race the Marugame Half saw new course records in both the women's and men's races and a near-miss on a new Japanese men's NR. Japan-based Kenyan  Pauline Kamulu soloed a 1:07:22 CR to win the women's race by 49 seconds, 4 seconds under the old CR and her fastest time since her 1:06:56 for bronze at the 2018 World Half Marathon Championships. Rika Kaseda continued to climb the ranks among Japanese women with a 1:08:11 for 2nd, landing her in the all-time Japanese top 10. Australian duo Isobel Batt-Doyle and Sinead Diver were 3-4 just 2 seconds apart in 1:09:27 and 1:09:29. In the men's race a lead sextet of Japan-based Kenyans Alexander Mutiso , Cleophas Kandie and Andrew Lorot , corporate leaguer Tomoki Ota , and collegiate runners Kotaro Shinohara and Reishi Yoshida went through 10 km together in 10 km before splitting into two groups. Lorot fell off the front group before 15 km and Yoshida off the back group by 15 km, leaving Muti...