japan running news

A fixture on runners' schedule for 79 years, the Fuji Mountain Race took place July 24 in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi. 3521 runners from across the country and around the world took on the challenge of racing up Mt. Fuji. The event is divided into 2 distances, the Summit Course of 21 km with 3000 m of ascent, and the Fifth Stage Course of 15 km with 1480 m climb. The Summit Course turns steep after the Seventh Stage, with runners slipping and stumbling on the loose rock on the trail as they near the peak. In the Summit Course race Ruy Ueda , 32, won for the second year in a row. Yuri Yoshizumi , 40, achieved an 8th-straight victory in the women's summit race. A local Fujiyoshida resident, post-race Yoshizumi said, "I mostly train on Mount Fuji too. All the local people cheering me on helped me to push harder." Takashi Mino won the men's title in the Fifth Stage Course, with Mirei Sugai taking the women's title. 79th Fuji Mountain Race Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, 24 ...

The 78th Fuji Mountain Race was held on Friday, July 25. Between the long course race, 21 km climbing 3000 m to the peak of Mount Fuji, and the Fifth Station race, 15 km climbing 1480 m, a total of 3,363 people from across Japan and around the world took part. In the long course race, Yuri Yoshizumi , 39, won the women's title for the 7th time in a row, with accomplished trail runner Ruy Ueda , 31, winning the men's title for the first time. Yoshimi Tanaka , 33, won the Fifth Station women's title and Yuki Yamada , 27, the men's title, both of them winning for the 2nd time. Yoshizumi, a pro mountain runner representing Fujisan GX Holdings who regularly trains on the Fuji Mountain Race course, said, "I remember the entire course." This time around Yoshizumi took the lead before hitting the hiking trail part of the course and pushed the pace from the Eighth Station onwards. "I was hitting it so hard that I couldn't respond to the people who were cheer...

by Brett Larner With a near-miss from typhoon #6, one of Japan's most difficult and popular midsummer races, the 64th Fuji Mountain Race , took place as scheduled July 22.   Toru Miyahara , who set the course record of 2:32:40 in the 21 km, 3000 m climb Summit Division five years ago, returned to take five minutes off his mark as he ran 2:27:41 for a new course record and his third win at the event's longest distance.  Runner-up Satoshi Kato , the winner of last year's 15 km, 1460 climb Fifth Stage Division making his debut at the full distance, was fast enough to have won most years but was nearly fourteen minutes behind Miyahara, finishing in 2:41:11.  Last year's women's Fifth Stage Division winner Mina Ogawa  also made a successful transition to the long race as she won in 3:10:45, a winning time only four women have bettered in the 27 years that the Fuji Mountain Race has had a women's division.   Kei Kikushima  and Mitsuko Hirose  won the men's...