japan running news

  Today's Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon was in one of the few places in the country not hit by heavy snow, but even though it was windier than ideal with a strong tailwind 1st half and headwind 2nd half people ran well. After a 1:04:31 fast half the men dropped as slow as 16:03 into the wind between 25 and 30 km, but when the pacers dropped a group of 6 broke free from the pack and got the race back on track with a 15:25 split through 35 km. Even though he only had a 2:15:11 PB  Kazuto Kawabata  was the only one who could sustain that over the next 5 km, and he kept rolling on to win in a new PB of 2:10:27. Amateur Shusei Ohashi  dropped a 2:11:01 PB for 2nd, just holding off the debuting Shoki Yamaguchi  from Soka University  who was 3rd in 2:11:02. 6 of the top 10 ran PBs, the other 4 all running the marathon for the first time and everyone under 2:12:30. Back in 13th, the talented Kenta Murayama  from the local  Asahi Kasei  corporate tea...

The Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is the most overlooked part of Japan's late winter marathon season, far from the nearest airports in the Asahi Kasei corporate team's remote hometown of Nobeoka, Miyazaki. Traditionally it's a race for people debuting or at the end of their career, but with Beppu-Oita, Osaka and Tokyo all catering to way faster times it's also now the best choice in the season for people looking for a race where they can run 2:09-2:11. New Zealand's Caden Shields found that out last year when he came to what ended up being a 2:09:43 race won by Jin Yuasa and finished 5th in a 2:11:35 PB. This time around Nobeoka counts toward qualification for the L.A. Olympic trials marathon in the fall of 2027, already the only thing anybody in the system here cares about, so pacing up front will be aimed to hit the sub-2:09 criterion for the winner to qualify. The field is the usual mix of people on both ends of the career spectrum, 2:08 PB runners Daiji Kaw...

Almost totally absent its usual winds, great conditions at the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon produced overall fast times and a sub-2:10 winning time for the second year in a row. Last year Waseda University 's Yota Ifuku became the first man to break 2:10 in Nobeoka with a surprise 2:09:26 debut for the win. Ifuku was back as a pacer with 2:07 man Tetsuya Yoroizaka from the local national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team, taking the lead group through 30 km almost dead on 3:06/km pace. A lead group of 12 was still together at that point, but just over a kilometer later Jin Yuasa , solid at January's New Year Ekiden in his corporate league debut with the Toyota corporate team with a 2nd-place run on the 11.4 km Sixth Stage, went on the attack. Pre-race Yuasa had said that he planned to bide his time until a strategic uphill between 31 and 32 km, and that's exactly what he did. Pushing on the climb, Yuasa then rolled a 2:52 for the 33rd km to blow the pack apart. F...

The Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is the least well-known of the four big Japanese men's marathons in five weeks, traditionally a place for debuts and 2nd-tier talent. And for the second year in a row a debuting Waseda University runner took the top spot this time, Yota Ifuku making history as the first runner ever to break 2:11 in Nobeoka with a 2:09:26 school record for the win. 5th on the Hakone Ekiden's Eighth Stage for Waseda six weeks ago, Ifuku was at the front of the pack of 19 at halfway in an ambitious 1:05:02. Just past 25 km he took off with a 15:10 split to 30 km that put him out front by 28 seconds, then went even faster with a 15:06 to 35 km. With a 38-second negative split Ifuku broke the tape in 2:09:26, one minute 39 seconds under the older CR of 2:11:05 set by Yuichi Washio back in 2006. 【 #延岡西日本マラソン 　速報】 🥇1位　伊福陽太(3) 2:09:26 (速報) 伊福が早稲田記録の2:09:50を更新する2:09:26で優勝！ この記録は大会記録＆学生歴代5位！！ 昨年の佐藤航希に続き、早稲田勢がこの大会2連覇です #臙脂で染めろ pic.twitter.com/uIra5rh3uh — 早稲田大学競走部 (...

The latest wave of race cancelations sweeping Japan as its coronavirus case numbers climb to record highs hit two elite-level marathons Friday, the Feb. 6 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon and Feb. 13 Nobeoka Nishi Nihon Marathon . Planned as a full-sized race with 4,184 entrants, with just two weeks to go Beppu-Oita announced that in an effort to cope with the worsening situation it was limiting its field to those with sub-2:30 times and their pacers, IPC athletes, and local entrants, all required to be fully vaccinated and tested within a short period before the race. Its new limited field of 543 takes Beppu-Oita back to its roots as an elite-only race, but the remaining 3600+ entrants find themselves out of luck. Just down the coast, Nobeoka took an even more conservative approach. Planned with a field size of only 200 plus an invited athlete field of what would probably have been another 8 or 10, the city government announced on Friday that the race has been canceled outright. In th...

The National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships were the biggest Japanese race of the weekend, but there was a lot more going on across the country. At the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon , local Ryoichi Matsuo (Asahi Kasei) dropped teammate Taiki Yoshimura with a surge at the 40 km mark to become the first runner in Nobeoka's 58-year history to win it three times. His winning time of 2:12:02 was also a PB and put him 7 seconds up on Yoshimura. Shota Miyagami (Kyudenko) was 3rd in 2:12:26. Complete results . The Ehime Marathon also had its 58th running. Haruki Okayama (Comody Iida) won the men's race in 2:14:53, with Yoshiki Nakamura (Ehime Ginko) and Takaki Mori (Mont Blanc) running 2:17:04 and 2:18:39 for 2nd and 3rd, Nakamura hanging on after a hard fall just before 29 km. Two weeks after running 2:32:48 in Osaka , Miharu Shimokado (Brooks) ran 1:35 under the old course record to win the women's race in a new record of 2:33:57. No other women clea...

Everything right now in Japanese distance is about qualifying for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials. On the men's side Toyota  currently leads the way, Yuma Hattori running 2:07:27, Taku Fujimoto 2:07:57 and Chihiro Miyawaki 2:08:45 last year to qualify. Five more Toyota runners ran big today to set up some exciting last-shot bids at qualifying in Tokyo and Lake Biwa. The National Corporate Half Marathon men's race went out relatively conservatively with a pack of 30 rolling through 10 km in 29:28. A series of runners including 35-year-old full-time-working amateur Takahiro Nakamura (Kyocera Kagoshima) took turns trying to get it moving before Amos Kurgat (Chudenko) took off for good to win unchallenged in 1:01:06. Along with Kenyans Paul Kuira (Konica Minolta) and Patrick Muendo Mwaka (Aisan Kogyo) Toyota's trio of Hideyuki Tanaka , Tsubasa Hayakawa and Minato Oishi emerged at the front of a chase group of 14. As the pace picked up over ...

It's a relatively quiet weekend ahead in the middle of Japan's busiest road racing season, but there are still four important races going on in the southern part of the country. The biggest is the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships in Yamaguchi.  Men's national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) is entered in what would be his first race since catching the flu post-Fukuoka and leads the domestic component of a field that includes nine men with recent sub-1:02 times and a million more right on the cusp. If he runs his main competition is sub-60 man Paul Kuira (Konica Minolta). 61:30ish runners Keisuke Nakatani (Nissin Shokuhin) and Kengo Suzuki (Fujitsu) will be looking to make comebacks after long periods of injury. The women's field is split between the half marathon and 10 km . Only three women in the half have broken 70 minutes before, Miho Shimizu (Hokuren) doing it the most recently with a 1:09:27 at Nationals in 2016. Shiori Yano...

Japan's most obscure elite-level marathon, the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon has announced its elite field for its 57th running on Feb. 10. Generally a developmental-level race with winning times in the 2:11 to 2:13 range, Nobeoka serves as a springboard for early career marathoners to move on to bigger things. Which hasn't stopped local Ryoichi Matsuo (Asahi kasei) from making it an annual event on his calendar, with wins in 2016 and 2017 and 2nd-place in an exciting sprint finish last year. Matsuo is back again this year to try to become only the second man in the race's history to win it three times. His main competition is Josai University ekiden team assistant coach Shingo Igarashi , 2nd in Osaka last fall and racing Nobeoka after training run efforts at the Xiamen and Dubai marathons in January. With a 2:15:02 best in Tokyo two years ago Takuma Shibata (Komori Corp.) should also factor in. The most interesting first-timer is Masamichi Yasuda (Aichi Seiko), a ...

Snow and cold impacted road races across Japan over the weekend, but at the top level almost every event went off as planned. In his marathon debut, Shota Yamazaki (Yakult) downed two-time defending champ Ryoichi Matsuo and debuting training partner Takumi Honda of the locally-based New Year Ekiden national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team to take the top spot at the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon in a three-way sprint finish. Shaking off first-timer Keisuke Tanaka (Fujitsu) late in the race, Yamazaki did all the work in the lead trio with the Asahi Kasei duo hanging off both of his shoulders. Hitting a bridge with 750 m to go Honda surged into the lead with Matsuo following. Yamazaki fell back, looking behind him with 500 m to go and seeming to have settled for 3rd. At 400 m to go Matsuo went to the front and looked to be on track to become only the second man to win Nobeoka three times, but as the pair rounded the final corner Yamazaki came back with a kick that left both...

At least five major races fill the calendar this weekend across Japan. Potentially the biggest is the Karatsu 10-Miler , where half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) is slated to run in what many hope will be a shot at the antique national record. Over 30 seconds faster than the American national record, Hisatoshi Shintaku 's 45:40,has stood since 1984 and survived  over three decades of assaults including Shitara's 45:58 at December's Kumamoto Kosa 10-Miler. It translates to 42:34 for 15 km; at last weekend's Marugame Half Shitara went through 15 km in 42:39. Just two weeks out from a shot at the Japanese national record for the marathon will Shitara try to add another national record to his resume en route to Tokyo? Many of his corporate league brethren and sistren will be lining up at the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships. Historically the world's deepest competitive men's half marathon and second-deepest women...

The second of Japan's four big February-March elite men's marathons, the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon has released its entry list for this year's 56th running on Feb. 11. Traditionally a developmental event for first-timers and early-career marathoners, Nobeoka has been the place where some of Japan's best, most notably Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki) have gotten their start. This year Ryoichi Matsuo of the locally-based national champion Asahi Kasei team will try to become only the second man in Nobeoka history to win it three years in a row. His main challenge will probably come from Masahiro Kawaguchi (Yakult), at 2:13:27 the only man in the field with a faster recent time than Matsuo's winning time of 2:13:36 from Noboeka last year. But given Nobeoka's nature any of the relatively inexperienced marathoners in the field, particularly Shota Miyagami (Kyudenko), could get it right this time and break through to Matsuo's level or beyond. Among ...

by Brett Larner In his first marathon of 2017 and the last one he will run before turning 30 Yuki  Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) made history as he won the 55th edition of the Ehime Marathon in 2:09:54, taking almost seven minutes off Ehime's 2:16:49 CR set in 1965. Saying pre-race that he thought he was in shape to run 2:13, Kawauchi split 15:11 for the first 5 km off a slow opening km, 2:08:08 pace.  Unexpectedly, he got company from Waseda University fourth-year and Ehime native Yohei Suzuki, a 1:02:16 half marathoner making his marathon debut before graduating next month.  Kawauchi responded by upping the pace to 15:08 through the next 5 km, putting the pair on track for 2:07:55 at 10 km and holding on to sub-2:09 pace through 25 km.  Suzuki lost touch near 20 km, hitting halfway in 1:04:30 to Kawauchi's 1:04:18, and from there it was a completely solo run to the end for both, with no pacers and no other competition in sight. Ever since his solo 2...

by Brett Larner The Feb. 12 Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is one of Japan's main developmental races for men, not counting directly in national team selection but serving as a springboard to future success.  Much of the field is making its debut each year or looking for a step up after showing potential in Nagano, Hokkaido or Osaka.  Rio Olympian Hisanori Kitajima (Team Yasukawa Denki) got his start in Nobeoka with a win in 2015, and Nobeoka has seen 2:11 winning times three times in its 55-year history including twice in the last five years. Last year's winner Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) returns as the top seed, the only man in the field to have broken 2:13 in the last three years.  If he wins he will be the first man since 1986 to win Nobeoka in back-to-back years. His main competition among those with experience comes from Sora Tsukada (Team SG Holdings), Junji Katakawa (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and Yuji Murota (Team JFE Steel), all 2:15 in minor domestic r...

by Brett Larner The proving ground marathon in Japan's Eugene, Athlete Town Nobeoka's Nishi Nippon Marathon hosts its 54th running on Feb. 14.  Proving among other things that change can come even to the most conservative parts of Japan, for the second year in a row Nobeoka will feature a women's field, small and entry-level but still a sign of positive change.  Like the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon a week earlier, Nobeoka's men's field suffers a bit in the face of the Olympic selection races at Tokyo and Lake Biwa just a few weeks later, but it does feature a large lineup of promising first-timers who should help fulfill Nobeoka's original purpose as the race where future marathoners are made. The local Asahi Kasei team fields the top three entrants.  Its Ryoichi Matsuo and Taiki Yoshimura lead the way with recent bests of 2:12:11 and 2:13:12, but the most exciting on the list is Asahi Kasei's Fumihiro Maruyama , 1:29:34 at the 2013 Kumanichi 30 k...

by Brett Larner With favorite Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) operating at less than 100% due to injury and illness last month and his rival Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) a late scratch after coming down with a bad fever just before the race Sunday's Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon was wide open for its 53rd running.  18 men including Kawauchi went through halfway in 1:04:57, on track for a shot at the 2:11:05 course record, before the field began to thin.  Born just three days apart and both making their marathon debuts at age 30, Hisanori Kitajima (Team Yasukawa Denki) and Norikazu Kato (Team Yakult) emerged to break away together, running side by side until nearly 35 km before Kitajima, braving 30 km/hr headwinds, broke free to take the win in 2:12:28. Kato faded more than a minute off Kitajima's pace to take 2nd in 2:13:34, just holding off 23-year old Hiroki Yamagishi (Team Hitachi Butsuryu) who was another 20 seconds back in 3rd.  For the first time i...

by Brett Larner February is one of those months with more events crammed in than it's possible to cover.  This weekend features at least three good quality marathons, a 10-miler, another late-season ekiden, and half of the elite Japanese cross country season. That XC happens east of Tokyo in Chiba at the Chiba International XC Meet, along with the Feb. 21 Fukuoka International XC Meet one of the two races that decide the Japanese team for next month's World XC Championships in China.  Marugame Half Marathon remnants Samuel Tsegaye (Eritrea) and Juan Luis Barrios (Mexico) make up the major share of the international component in the senior men's 12 km where they face the likes of 2015 Hakone Ekiden course record setter Aoyama Gakuin University 's Kazuma Kubota , Daito Bunka University wonder twins Hiroshi and Takashi Ichida and many more.  The Japanese junior teams usually represent well at worlds, and most of the country's best up-and-coming talent will be ...

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20150201-00000514-sanspo-spo http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2015/02/01/kiji/K20150201009732430.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Things are tough all over for the civil servant runner.  2014 Asian Games marathon bronze medalist Yuki Kawauchi (27, Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran the 82nd edition of the six-stage, 42.195 km Saitama Ekiden on Feb. 1.  Running its longest stage, the 12.1 km Third Stage, Kawauchi clocked 3:15 slower than his own course record, timed at 39:28 for 6th on the stage but still advancing the Saitama Prefectural Government team from 12th to 9th. Kawauchi sat out last weekend's Okumusashi Ekiden to let the ankle he sprained late last year heal.  The pain from the sprain has dissipated to "minor discomfort," but although the wind was strong in Saitama, more than any lingering discomfort in his ankle this time he was set back by coming down with a cold on Jan. 28.  "I've been sleeping nine ...

by Brett Larner photo courtesy marumaruko1201 Record-breaking snowfall in eastern Japan all day Saturday meant the cancellation of virtually every Sunday race in the area, including the elite-level Chiba International Cross-Country Meet , and kept many Tokyo-region runners bound for races in the west at home. Of the races that did go off, in his marathon debut 2008 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km winner Kazuki Tomaru  (Team Toyota) was the star of the day's most important race, the 52nd running of the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon . With impeccable pacing from former Waseda University standout Yuki Yagi  (Team Asahi Kasei), who split 15:27, 15:26 and 15:26 for the first three 5 km segments, a large pack ran at around 2:10:30 pace, 45 seconds ahead of the event's course record.  The pace slowed slightly from 15 km to Yagi's departure at 25 km, but Tomaru quickly got to work with another 15:26 to get rid of the field.  Only Ryo Ishita  (SDF Academy) went aft...

by Brett Larner With heavy snow scheduled to hit most of the country on Saturday four races fill Sunday's calendar.   Chief among them is the 52nd edition of the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon , a developmental race that has seen the debuts of the likes of Moscow World Championships marathon 5th-placer Kentaro Nakamoto  (Team Yasukawa Denki) and Hiroaki Sano  (Team Honda), the top Japanese man at last year's Chicago Marathon.   Sho Matsumoto  (Nikkei Business) leads the way with a 2:13:38 best from last year's Nobeoka, but look for challenges from debuting Hakone Ekiden Sixth Stage course record holder Kenta Chiba (Team Fujitsu) and Team Otsuka Seiyaku's ace rookie Yudai Yamakawa . Click here for a field listing and more info . The 54th Karatsu 10-miler sees Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't) taking on sub-60 minute half marathoner Mekubo Mogusu  (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin), Hiroyuki Uno  formerly of Hakone Ekiden course record sette...