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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...

  The 77th running of the Fuji Mountain Race took place on July 26. In the long course summit race, 21 km with around 3000 m of climb from Fuji Yoshida city hall to the peak of Mount Fuji, Yuri Yoshizumi won the women's race in 3:13:08 and Ryunosuke Omi the men's race in 2:42:24.; In the women's race, last year's 2nd-placer Rieko Koshi led Yoshizumi by 19 seconds at the end of the road section at around 11.5 km. But on the trail section after that Yoshizumi passed her and built a winning lead to score her sixth Fuji Mountain Race title since 2017. 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016 winner Mina Ogawa was 2nd in 3:21:44, with Koshi hanging on to make the podium again in 3:25:02 for 3rd. Having won in his summit course debut last year, Omi was in the lead at the 11.5 km checkpoint. But by the Fifth Stage checkpoint he had been overtaken by Ruy Ueda and dropped two minutes behind. But Ueda, running the summit course for the first time, faded after hitting the steepest trail se...

Starting in front of Fujiyoshida City Hall in Yamanashi prefecture, the 72nd Fuji Mountain Race took place July 26 with 4043 people entered in its summit and Fifth Stage divisions. Due to bad weather at Mt. Fuji's peak the summit division was cut off at the Fifth Stage, covering the same 15 km course with 1480 m elevation gain as the Fifth Stage division. Yuki Yamada (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) won the summit division race for the first time in 1:17:26, two-time women's champion Yuri Yoshizumi (Medifoam) making it three in a row in 1:37:23. Takuya Saito (Nichizei Business) and Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) topped the men's and women's Fifth Stage division races, Saito winning for the first time in 1:22:10 and Yoshida running 1:37:10 to win for the second year. The winner of the men's Fifth Stage race last year, Yamada was set to take on the summit race for the first time this year. Disappointed at having to settle with a win over a course cut off at the Fifth Stage, h...

Just ahead of an approaching typhoon former Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage man  Shun Gorotani and established mountain runner Yuri Yoshizumi both repeated their summit climb wins in Friday's 71st edition of the iconic Fuji Mountain Race . Video: Finish: 五郎谷俊 Shun Gorotani（コモディイイダ）が2:39:28で第70回富士登山競走山頂コースを昨年に続いて連覇。昨年の箱根駅伝5区での快走で知られるトップ選手です。 #富士登山競走 #mtfuji pic.twitter.com/MjxrQxNjlI — Dogsorcaravan (@Dogsorcaravan) July 27, 2018 Already having established himself as one of Japan's premier uphill specialists, Gorotani had a lead of over four minutes by halfway into the run up to the peak of Mt. Fuji. Gorotani covered the 21 km, 3000 m+ elevation gain course in 2:39:28, almost 8 minutes off his winning time last year but 14 minutes ahead of runner-up Miki Ushida . Speaking to Dogsorcaravan post-race Gorotani expressed disappointment with his time, saying he couldn't move his legs at all. "I've still got a long way to go," he said. Video: Finish: 吉住友里...

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2012/07/28/kiji/K20120728003776590.html translated and edited by Brett Larner 3676 runners took part in the two divisions of the 65th Fuji Mountain Race on July 27.  Making his Mt. Fuji debut, Jonathan Wyatt  (39, New Zealand) won the summit course in a strong 2:33:59, with Mina Ogawa  (37, Amino Vital AC) taking the women's race in 3:07:51 for her second-straight summit win.   Toru Koide  (30, Salomon) and Maki Hagiwara  (37) won the men's and women's Fifth Stage course wins in 1:25:42 and 1:45:17. With a margin of 17 minutes over the runner-up, Wyatt's win was definitive.  A two-time Olympian for his native New Zealand with appearances in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic 5000 m and 2004 Athens Olympics marathon, Wyatt pulled clear into the lead after crossing into the purest mountain running section of the course after the Sixth Stage.  "My win today is one of the biggest honors in my long career," said a ha...

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...

http://mainichi.jp/area/yamanashi/news/20100724ddlk19040123000c.html translated and edited by Brett Larner With 4686 runners making up its largest-ever field, the 63rd annual Fuji Mountain Race took place July 23. With last year's race having been cut off at Mt. Fuji's 5th Stage due to fog and rain at the mountain's summit, this year under dazzling summer skies the event returned to its usual format with runners competing in either the 21 km, 3000 m climb Summit division or the 15 km, 1460 m climb 5th Stage division. In the men's Summit race, Shinya Takahashi , 35, of Iwate Prefecture, took his first win in 2:53:00. Yoshimi Hoshino , 44, of Shizuoka Prefecture, the course record holder and two-time winner in the 5th Stage division, took her fifth Summit win eight years after her last Summit victory. 5th Stage men's winner Satoshi Kato was only 38 seconds off the course record, running 1:19:57, while women's winner Mina Ogawa was only a minute and a half off Ho...

http://www.honolulumarathon.org/?s=raceweeknews#st_7 Kiyoko Shimahara approaching the finish in Honolulu. Photos by Dr. Helmut Winter . After not breaking 2:30 since 2006 Kiyoko Shimahara (Second Wind AC) has now done it three times in the last three and a half months, running a PB and CR of 2:25:10 to win the Hokkaido Marathon on Aug. 30, finishing 2nd in 2:28:51 on Nov. 15 in the inaugural Yokohama International Women's Marathon, and now four weeks later a 2:29:53 runner-up spot in the Dec. 13 Honolulu Marathon. Third sub-2:30 of the season. 2009 Honolulu Marathon - Top Women's Finishers click here for complete results with splits 1. Svetlana Zakharova (Russia) - 2:28:34 2. Kiyoko Shimahara (Second Wind AC) - 2:29:53 3. Pamela Chepchumba (Kenya) - 2:32:41 4. Kaori Yoshida (Amino Vital AC) - 2:35:46 5. Eri Hayakawa (Amino Vital AC) - 2:44:33 6. Satoko Uetani (Kobe Gakuin Univ.) - 2:45:19 7. Akemi Ozaki (Second Wind AC) - 2:50:20 8. Mina Ogawa (Japan) - 2:50:20 9. Kozue Saito (...