japan running news

Zakayo Ngatho and Julius Gitahi go down to the wire with Canada's Jeff Schiebler just behind in the 2001 Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m.

Part two of a 2010 interview with Tsutomu Akiyama , one of the people responsible for bringing the first Kenyans into Japan's high school, collegiate and corporate running worlds. Read part one here . Can you talk more about World Half Marathon Championships silver medalist Philes Ongori? Well, as of April she’s leaving and going back to be based in Kenya. She’s superb up to the half marathon. She has run in the 67:30’s. At the World Half in the U.K. she ran 67:38 and came 2nd, just beating 3rd at the very end. But looking toward the marathon…she can train up to what’s necessary for the half marathon, but the marathon has to be double that. I don’t know how that’s going to turn out. I can’t say one way or the other. Looking back a bit, when she came over in high school she was running 2:23 for 800 m. The first stage of the National High School Ekiden is the same as the first stage of the National Inter-Prefectural Ekiden. On the first stage of the National High School Eki...

Stephen Mayaka was the first Kenyan high school runner in Japan and the first to go the complete route from high school to university and on into the corporate running world. Now a Japanese citizen, married to a former World Championships-level Japanese marathoner and head coach of Obirin University’s ekiden team, Mayaka is a mentor to Kenyan athletes both across Japan and back in Kenya. JRN interviewed Mayaka just before New Year, 2010 for an article for Running Times magazine. This is part two of his interview.  Click here for part one . Part Two: The Corporate Life, Pros and Cons At the professional level, in your day-to-day life in the corporate teams how is it for Kenyan runners or other foreign athletes? I think every company has its own schedule. I support some companies, and I don’t support some other companies, the way they are using us. There are different understandings. I think there are companies that need a Kenyan just to run in the ekiden championships and...

JRN interviewed Stephen Mayaka , the first Kenyan high school runner in Japanese history, for an article in the May issue of Running Times magazine . This month we present the complete interview in serialized form in our subscription series JRNPremium . In part one of the interview Mayaka talked about being recruited and his experience as a student runner. In part two he talks about life on Japan's corporate teams and the difficulties Kenyans and other foreign runners face in fitting into the shifting demands of the system. Highlights from part two are included below. To read the full interview along with others in the JRNPremium series, click here to subscribe . Part Two: The Corporate Life, Pros and Cons We had some South Africans, Kalamori, I know him, we raced together, from Burundi, and Morocco. Some Ethiopians are coming but they are difficult because of the Ethiopian language and their culture. But it became to happen that the companies mostly prefer the Kenyans very much ...

With less than two weeks to go until the 2nd mass-participation Tokyo Marathon I will be focusing on articles about this race and its impact. First is an article by JRN's Mika Tokairin which appeared in the May 2007 issue of Japan's largest running magazine, Runners . This issue of Runners was dedicated exclusively to coverage of the first Tokyo Marathon; one article sought the opinions of non-Japanese participants. by Mika Tokairin translated by Brett Larner photo by Robin Orlansky Among 30,000 runners, 1200 foreigners ran through the streets of Tokyo. What did the first Tokyo Marathon look like through their eyes? How did it compare to marathons overseas? What is the running culture like in their countries? We interviewed three foreign runners to find the answers. Bob Poulson was born in New York and has worked in Tokyo as a copywriter for over 30 years. He is the founder of Tokyo’s international running club Namban Rengo. He frequently runs marathons, road races and ekidens...