japan running news

Yuka Ando 's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes. And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon . Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin Unive...

Fresh off becoming the fastest-ever Japanese-born collegiate half marathoner with a 1:00:11 in Marugame last month, 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University 2nd-year Kotaro Shinohara won the National University Half Marathon Sunday in Tokyo's western suburb of Tachikawa. In warm conditions the dense lead group ran relatively conservatively, on track to go just under 63 minutes. But entering Tachikawa's Showa Kinen Park for a final 5 km of undulations and sharp turns Shinohara turned it on to pull away, winning easily in 1:02:16. Another of the pre-race favorites, sub-28 10000 m runner Reishi Yoshida of Hakone non-qualifier Chuo Gakuin University was 2nd in 1:02:29. Another Hakone non-qualifier, Tokyo Nogyo University 's Neo Namiki looked set to take 3rd. But in the last km Rei Matsunaga of Hosei University , famed for trying to run away with last year's Kanto Regionals 5000 m versus 3000 m SC NR holder Ryuji Miura , came up to pass Namiki, stealing 3rd in 1:0...

Two big races cap Sunday's road racing action in Japan. First up is the Nagoya Women's Marathon , where last year's winner Ruth Chepngetich is back saying at the pre-race press conference that she's ready to break the course record. Although she's still listed in the field on the English section of the Nagoya site, oddly she has been dropped from the Japanese section's field listing . She wasn't included in yesterday's announcement of the withdrawal of Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Molly Seidel and Germany's Katharina Steinruck , either language version, so it's possible her absence from the field listing on the Japanese site is a mistake. But it's very odd. Either way, the world's largest women-only marathon has a relatively thin elite field , even thinner with Seidel and Steinruck out. 2021 Valencia winner Nancy Jelagat is the only sub-2:20 runner in the field apart from Chepngetich, with the next tier solidly at the 2:22-2:23 and...

The 25th National University Half Marathon took place Sunday in western Tokyo alongside the Tachikawa City Half Marathon . The race that decides the #1 collegiate half marathoner in the country was won by 19-year-old Koku Gakuin University 1st-year Kiyoto Hirabayashi , who pulled away from the field after 14 km to win in 1:01:50. Consistently strong throughout his rookie season, Hirabayashi made KGU's starting team for all the Big Three University Ekidens and took 2nd on the Hakone Ekiden's competitive Ninth Stage. Taiga Nakanishi , KGU's captain for the upcoming 2022-23 year, was 2nd in 1:02:02, just beating Toyo University 2nd-year Kazuki Matsuyama at the line to make it a KGU 1-2. All three qualified for the Japanese team for June's Chengdu World University Games. On one of the first days of true spring warmth, Hirabayashi shouted in joy as he crossed the finish line. When Nakanishi came in seconds later Hirabayashi hugged him, laughing. "This was my first ...

It's the last big weekend of road racing on the Japanese calendar this season. But even before it kicks off, there's a bit of track action Saturday. Tokyo Olympics steepler Kosei Yamaguchi  and a few other Japanese athletes are taking advantage of Australia's borders opening up two weeks ago to run the Sydney Track Classic . Yamaguchi is running in the men's 3000 m national championships, a tuneup for the 3000 mSC at next week's Melbourne Track Classic, both with support from JRN. Streaming and live results here . Back at home on Sunday, the Nagoya Women's Marathon wraps up three straight weekends of big city marathon action in Japan. Kenyan-born Israeli Lonah Chemtai Salpeter  wisely avoided defending her 2:17:45 CR at the Tokyo Marathon last weekend , where world record holder Brigid Kosgei  won in 2:16:02, opting instead to go after the biggest winning payout in the sport, Nagoya's $250,000 USD. It's great to see the biggest women-only marathon in t...

Scheduled for Mar. 20, the 43rd Matsue Ladies Half Marathon in Matsue, Shimane, has been canceled. This marks the third year in a row that the race has been canceled. A statement from the organizing committee read, "In light of the rapid spread of the highly infectious omicron variant throughout Japan, including within Shimane, it would be difficult to eliminate the risk to the runners, volunteers, and everyone else involved in the race." Alongside Matsue's announcement, the Inter-University Athletic Union of Japan announced that the 25th National University Women's Half Marathon, held as part of the Matsue race, is also being canceled. The university women's half was to be a selection race for the 2022 Chengdu World University Games half marathon team, but after its cancelation selection will instead be made based on performances in the National University Track and Field Championships 10000 m to be held between Apr. 15 and 17.  The National University Men's...

Even windier and warmer than in Nagoya , the airfield runway in Tokyo's western suburbs offered no shade or shelter to the men and women competing in the National University Half Marathon Championships Sunday in Tachikawa, keeping times slower than usual and more people in the race late. In the men's race, Koki Kamata  (Hosei Univ.) repeated his run on the Hakone Ekiden's First Stage back in January, kicking hard to drop a pack in the final straight for the win in 1:03:00. Hakone champ Komazawa University 's star first-year Mebuki Suzuki  was 2nd in 1:03:07 with Yoshinori Shimazaki  (Koku Gakuin Univ.) 3rd in 1:03:08 a step ahead of teammate Kota Fujiki  and Komazawa 4th-year Ayumu Kobayashi , 4th and 5th in 1:03:09. Kamata, Suzuki and Shimazaki all scored places on the Japanese team for this summer's Chengdu World University Games . The women's race was even closer up front. 2020 National University Women's Ekiden champion Meijo University  teammates Naru...

Looking at what's coming up Sunday it kind of almost sort of feels like things are starting to get back toward normalish. Down to the south you've got the Nagoya Women's Marathon stepping up as the first WA Platinum Label Race worldwide to go ahead with a combined elite and mass-participation race since the pandemic started. It's a much smaller field than usual with just 5,000 in the mass-participation race plus elites, but they're actually going to do it. Can you believe it? We're still having a hard time. The elite race should be good, even with the withdrawal of Tokyo Olympics marathon team member Ayuko Suzuki  (Japan Post) with another injury. You've still got Olympic team alternate Rei Ohara  (Tenmaya), last year's Osaka International winner Mizuki Matsuda  (Daihatsu) and 25 km national record co-holder Sayaka Sato  (Sekisui Kagaku), with Matsuda kicking around the possibility of a new NR. That sounds pretty good. There's even a chance of a ne...

All three of Sunday's main road races saw quality times thanks to a combination of deep fields, good conditions and the promise of national team spots. First up at the National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park, Hakone Ekiden Fourth Stage course record breaker Akira Aizawa (Toyo Univ.) led the top three under 62 minutes in a skillfully controlled 1:01:45. With places on the team for this summer's Napoli World University Games team at stake Aizawa waited until near the end to take advantage of the final hills to break free of the pack. Runner-up Taisei Nakamura (Komazawa Univ.) and 3rd-placer Tatsuhiko Ito (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) both cleared 62 minutes for the first time, Nakamura in 1:01:51 and Ito in 1:01:52, Ito's mark especially newsworthy from the still fresh new Tokyo Kokusai program. Teammates Hidekazu Hijikata and Yuhei Urano (Koku Gakuin Univ.) were both just over the 62-minute mark to round out the...

What do you know, it's another big weekend. The last chance for Japan's marathoners to go the easy route for qualifying for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials by placing among the top six Japanese finishers at the Nagoya Women's Marathon and Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon . Traditionally they're a week apart with Nagoya marking the end of the season, but with the Tokyo Marathon moving the Lake Biwa's usual date the first Sunday in March due to the impending Imperial succession the JAAF has opted to stage Nagoya and Lake Biwa back-to-back the same day. In the morning comes Nagoya. The upper end of the domestic field took a hit with the expansion of Tokyo's women's field this year, but there's no shortage of talent from 2:24 on down. Only nine women have qualified for the MGC Race to date, but given the depth of the field it'll be a true shock if nobody hits the standards. #1-ranked Japanese woman Reia Iwade (Under Armour) alread...

October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai , the official qualifying race for Japan's biggest race, has for decades been by a massive margin the world's #1 20 km road race . Beginning this year organizers have announced changes to its format including a shift from 20 km to the half marathon distance, positioning the Yosenkai to join November's Ageo City Half Marathon and March's National University Half Marathon Championships as one of the world's deepest and most competitive half marathons. The Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto  [ KGRR ], organizers of the Jan.. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden , have announced that the length of the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race will be extended from the traditional 20 km to a half marathon beginning with this year's 95th edition on Oct. 13. The start and finish at Showa Kinen Park and the neighboring Air Defense Force base in Tachikawa, Tokyo will remain the same. Organizers are still considering various plans for making up th...

Sunday morning featured two big half marathons in Tokyo and Kyushu, both impacted by an unseasonal heat wave that swept the country over the weekend. At the National University Men's Half Marathon in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park, Ryuya Kajitani (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) timed a break perfectly to win his first national title in 1:03:20. Hanging back in a secondary pack as rivals Takeshi Nishida (Tokai Univ.) and Shogo Ise (Komazawa Univ.) duked it out up front through most of the race, Kajitani went to the front with 5 km to go. Ise tried to match him but fell behind and ended up 2nd in 1:03:31, Nishida another 5 seconds back in 1:03:36 for 3rd. Four-time Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin placed three runners in the top ten without running any of its A-list men, a sign that depth was down overall from some of the record-breaking mass finishes in recent years. National University Men’s Half leaders 14:47 at 5k. Huge uninterrupted pack. pic.twitter.com/zBykCalXok — Japan Running Ne...

After finishing 4th on the competitive Second Stage on Day One of the 2018 Hakone Ekiden , Kanagawa University star 4th-year Kengo Suzuki departed Japan to take part in the JAAF's New Zealand marathon training camp for the second year in a row. "I want to conquer my fears about the distance and get as close as I can come to the feeling of being in the race," he said. After winning November's National University Men's Ekiden for the first time in 20 years, Kanagawa ended up only 13th overall at Hakone . Following his graduation in March Suzuki, the 2017 National University Half Marathon champion, will join the Fujitsu corporate team. In order the reap the greatest return on investment from his marathon debut, in Tokyo next month Suzuki will focus on overall place rather than time. "I want to show that disappointment can be a spark for growth," he said. source article: http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20180108-OHT1T50010.html translated and e...

Ten years ago today Japan Running News started with a story about the withdrawal of Wataru Okutani from the Japanese men's marathon team just before the start of the Osaka World Championships. The concept was to provide a high-quality and reliable source for information in English about as much of the fascinating and exciting but otherwise invisible world of Japanese distance running as possible, and in the ten years of almost daily updates since then that ideal hasn't changed. The timing couldn't have been better, capturing the arcs of Samuel Wanjiru , Arata Fujiwara  and  Yuki Kawauchi , the rise of the Hakone Ekiden-driven university men's running circuit and of Japanese men's sprinting, and the buildup toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Along the way JRN has grown in ways we couldn't have expected, bringing writing jobs for publications worldwide and TV commentating work, the chance to work directly with some of Japan's best athletes and to travel ar...

by Brett Larner video by Ekiden News 【学生ハーフ】 スタートしました！ユニバーシアードへの切符は誰の手に！？ pic.twitter.com/icWUjoqbc7 — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) March 5, 2017 Quickly rising to the top of university men's distance running this season with a 58:43 3rd-place finish at October's Hakone Ekiden qualifier 20 km and a 1:07:17 win on the 23.2 km Hakone Ekiden Second Stage, Kengo Suzuki (Kanagawa Univ.) ran the biggest race of his career to date with a course record-breaking 1:01:36 win at the 2017 National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. 1:01:25 man Naoki Kudo (Komazawa Univ.) took the race out at sub-61 pace, but after a 29:08 split at 10 km Suzuki got down to work.  Pushing the second half and pulling away alone, he became the first man to break 62 minutes at the National University Half, the deepest half marathon in the world with 265 finishers sub-66 in 2015.  Suzuki's finishing time of 1:01:36 made him the 7th-fastest Japanese-...

by Brett Larner Japan's winter road season is winding down, but two of the biggest races are still on for this Sunday.  Last year the National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park was like no other race ever seen : 265 men under 1:06:00, 27 under 1:03:00, the top 12 all under 1:02:30.  Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University dominated with the overall win by second-year Tadashi Isshiki and three in the top ten.  AGU will again send in a big squad, thin this year on its upper-level men but with such depth and rapid improvement in its ranks that it won't be a surprise to see AGU runners no one has heard of running under 1:03:00.  Last year's depth was fueled in part by the chance to score places on the Japanese team for the World University Games and without a Universiade this year the numbers may be down somewhat, but it's safe to say that with the possible exception of the Cardiff World Half Marathon Championships...