japan running news

Entry lists are out for the Feb. 4 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon . There's no separate women's entry list, but last year's 2nd and 3rd-placers Rieko Koshi and Hisae Yoshimatsu are both back and will probably go 1-2. The men's race has a small international contingent of Moroccans Mohamed Reda El Aaraby and Ayoub Dardar , Ethiopians Aychew Bantie and Workneh Derese , and Canadian Ben Preisner , with El Aaraby and Bantie setting up a potential 2:07 race for the Japanese crowd. Six Japanese men at the 2:07 to 2:08 level who have a realistic view of their chances of hitting the 2:05:50 standard to steal the 3rd spot on the Paris Olympic team in Osaka or Tokyo are on the list for Beppu-Oita, where a good run will earn them a trip to October's Chicago Marathon. Fumihiro Maruyama (Asahi Kasei) and Yuta Koyama (Toenec) are the fastest at 2:07:55 and 2:07:57 in Osaka the last two years, with Yuta Shimoda (GMO) leading the 2:08 quartet in 2:08:00 from Lake Biwa 2021. Su...

The final day of the 97th Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships kicked off as usual with the D1 and D1 men's half marathon. Logistics of the meet's new location this year at Sagamihara Gion Stadium in Kanagawa meant a complicated course, with the two divisions starting 9 minutes apart with four laps of the track, twelve laps of a 1.58 km road loop, and a track finish. In both divisions the runners-up from Thursday's 10000 m taking the top spot. In D2 Simon Kariuki (Nihon Yakka Univ.) ran the fastest time of the day, 1:03:09, for his second-straight win. In D1 it was Dominic Nyairo (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) in 1:03:49, his third-straight D1 Kanto Half title. The men's 5000 m went to both divisions' 10000 m winners, with D1 champ Patrick Mathenge Wambui (Nihon Univ.) taking the top spot in his race in 13:45.30 to score his third-straight Kanto double and D2 winner Josphat Ledama Kesaisa (Obirin) leading his in 13:49.86. 3rd in the D1 10000 m, K...

In its second edition the Niigata Half Marathon continued to grow into an important end-of-season event, with Kazuya Azegami (Teikyo Univ.) leading eight men including teammate Takeshi Tamura under 1:03. Ryunosuke Matsuo (Tokai Univ.) made a move to break away near 15 km, but Azegami fought back to open a 5-second lead by 20 km on the way to the win in 1:02:30. In the women's race, Kanayo Miyata (Yutaka Giken) closed a 35-second gap at halfway to breakaway leader Haruka Wada (Shimamura), overtaking Wada in the final kilometer to win in 1:15:31 to 1:15:33. At the 39th running of the Matsue Ladies Half Marathon , 2:23:19 marathoner Tomomi Tanaka (Daiichi Seimei) returned from a long layoff to take the win in 1:11:39, dropping rival Yuri Nozoe (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) in the final kilometer to win by 6 seconds. Doubling as the National University Women's Half Marathon Championships, 3rd placer Hitomi Mizuguchi (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) scored the national title in 1:12:34...

Under heavy skies and falling mist, Obirin University 2nd-year Josphat Ledama Kisaisa frontran the Yosenkai 20 km Road Race in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park to win in 57:27 and lead the field to world record-setting depth. The official qualifying race for second-tier Tokyo-area universities to join the best at the legendary Hakone Ekiden , the Yosenkai featured 49 university teams of 10 to 12 runners apiece scored on the aggregate time of their top 10 finishers. The 10 fastest teams would join the 10 schools already seeded for the 2018 Hakone Ekiden, with a 21st team made up of top-placing individuals from non-qualifying schools rounding out the field. Leaders 14:14 at 5k. Lead JPN pack 14:45. 2nd pack 15:02. pic.twitter.com/NXjKGAaQyO — Japan Running News (@JRNHeadlines) October 14, 2017 Hot from the gun, Kisaisa led a lead pack of 6 Kenyans through 5 km in 14:14, on track to break the unbreakable 57:01 course record set in 2007 by Mekubo Mogusu (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ....