japan running news

Following up last weekend's NR-breaking Marugame Half where the top 24 men went under 61 minutes, today's National Corporate Half Marathon delivered another big one. Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) and Shadrack Kipchirchir (Chudenko) broke away from the pack mid-race and opened a substantial lead, but in the last few km Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx) closed the gap and passed them by. Ichiyama took almost a minute off his PB to win in 1:00:22, the 8th-fastest time ever by a Japanese man. Favorite Tatsuhiko Ito (Honda) closed hard to pass Nishizawa and Kipchirchir on the track but couldn't catch Ichiyama, 5 seconds behind in 2nd in 1:00:27 with Nishizawa right behind in 1:00:29 for 3rd. Coming off an injury in November that held him back at last month's New Year Ekiden , Ichiyama told JRN post-race, "This was a big confidence builder for my next race." That would be next month's Tokyo Marathon. The top 14 men were all under 61 minutes. Compared to that th...

Rino Goshima and Jun Kasai stepped up with PBs to win the 2024 National Championships 10000 m titles Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium. In the women's race, Goshima, 4th in last December's 2023 National Championships 10000 m, went out front from the start with Kenyan teammate Judy Jepngetich pacing and 2023 3rd-placer Haruka Kokai in tow. Things were never on track to hit the 30:40.00 Paris Olympics standard, but except for a brief dip to 3:08 at 7000 m Goshima held steady at 3:05 to 3:06/km even as Kokai and Jepngetich fell off. With blood dripping from her left knee after getting spiked by Jepngetich, Goshima closed in 3:03 to take 5 seconds off her best from December's Nationals and win in 30:53.31, moving up to all-time Japanese #6. Jepngetich also PBd at 31:09.42 without counting in the standings, with Kokai 2nd in 31:10.53 and Kazuna Kanetomo 3rd in a PB 31:59.29. The runner-up last time, Yuka Takashima was last in 33:33.27. The men's race went out in a...

Two weeks after running 14:44.83 at Kanagawa's Nittai University Time Trials , 22-year-old Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) continued her rise up the ranks to global relevance with another stellar run at Nittai on Sunday. Running in the fastest 3000 m heat with support from 19-year-old Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera), Akidor took nearly 20 seconds off her best with an 8:32.53 for the win. That was the fastest ever run in Japan by 3 seconds and enough to put her #8 in the world this year. Mwikali was solid too at 8:37.17, almost 10 seconds under her previous best and the next-best ever run in Japan apart from two dodgy early '90s marks by Soviet athletes. 3rd-placer Mizuki Michishita (Rikkyo Univ.) was in another league at 9:13.68. Kazuna Kanetomo (Kyocera) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:56.42, the only woman under 15 minutes. In the men's 5000 m Kenyan Richard Etir won the A-heat in 13:16.20, a time beaten this weekend only by Benard Koech (Kyudenko) at Fukuoka's ...