japan running news

by Brett Larner photo courtesy marumaruko1201 Record-breaking snowfall in eastern Japan all day Saturday meant the cancellation of virtually every Sunday race in the area, including the elite-level Chiba International Cross-Country Meet , and kept many Tokyo-region runners bound for races in the west at home. Of the races that did go off, in his marathon debut 2008 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km winner Kazuki Tomaru  (Team Toyota) was the star of the day's most important race, the 52nd running of the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon . With impeccable pacing from former Waseda University standout Yuki Yagi  (Team Asahi Kasei), who split 15:27, 15:26 and 15:26 for the first three 5 km segments, a large pack ran at around 2:10:30 pace, 45 seconds ahead of the event's course record.  The pace slowed slightly from 15 km to Yagi's departure at 25 km, but Tomaru quickly got to work with another 15:26 to get rid of the field.  Only Ryo Ishita  (SDF Academy) went aft...

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20130210/ath13021015250001-n1.html http://www.saga-s.co.jp/news/saga_sports.0.2395607.article.html translated and edited by Brett Larner 2009 double 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) easily won the Feb. 10 Karatsu 10-Mile Road Race in Karatsu, Saga, beating Kenyan sub-60 half marathoner Mekubo Mogusu (Team Nissin Shokuhin) while looking relaxed and fresh. Indifferently evaluating his winning time of 46:56, Ueno said, "I just ran at the pace I had planned." A member of the historic S&B corporate team set to disband at the end of March, Ueno will run his final race in the S&B uniform at the Mar. 17 National Corporate Half Marathon Championships in Yamaguchi. He called his performance in Karatsu "just a training run" for the half, looking confident as he said, "I'm in the middle of doing really hard training, so the time I ran today says I should do great in the half too....

by Brett Larner Sera High School ’s scouts are on top of their game.First Sera’s Bitan Karoki (Team S&B) came a hairsbreadth from cracking Samuel Wanjiru 's legendary National High School Ekiden stage record his senior year before going on to impress this year at the Cardinal Invitational, Kenyan Championships and the Africa Games. Then as a junior last year current Sera senior Charles Ndirangu likewise missed Wanjiru’s record by the slimmest of margins. Now Ndirangu has come through. Seemingly unaware of the international declaration of the end of track season last month, Ndirangu rocketed a 13:15.44 at the Oct. 22 Oita Prefecture Challenge Games track meet to break the Japanese national high school 5000 m record. Officially called a new Japanese high school international student record, Ndirangu’s time is a full 16 seconds better than the best ever run by a Japanese high school student.  In comparison, past Kenyan national XC champion Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shok...