japan running news

Yuya Yoshida winning Fukuoka in CR time was a great story, and here's another one. Kana Kobayashi didn't run track or ekidens in junior high, high school, or at Waseda University and just ran for fun, but after a 2:36:54 debut at last year's Osaka International Women's Marathon and a 2:29:44 PB there this year she got an offer from the Otsuka Seiyaku corporate team. After a good championship ekiden season she ran today's Hofu Yomiuri Marathon , and with a 5-minute PB she won in a CR 2:24:59. It was an impressively even effort, 1:12:13 through halfway and breaking competition that included 2:22:29 runner Mao Uesugi and 2:23:05 runner Natsumi Matsushita . Her final margin of victory over Matsushita was almost 3 1/2 minutes, with Uesugi another 4 1/2 minutes further back. It's not quite the top level of the sport in Japan, but it for sure puts Kobayashi near the top of the list of rising talent. The men's race went through halfway on CR pace, with last ye...

Runner-up at last year's Fukuoka International Marathon, Kyohei Hosoya was the top Japanese finisher at the Chicago Marathon Sunday. Hosoya went through halfway in the 2nd pack in 1:03:46 en route to a 2:08:05 for 6th. Riki Nakanishi was the only other Japanese man under 2:10, barely, finishing 14th in 2:09:59. Hiroto Fujimagari and Kiyoshi Koga were less successful, Fujimagari 20th in 2:13:04 and Koga 23rd in 2:13:42. Koki Ozawa just made it under 2:20 in an apparent marathon debut, running 2:19:54 for 40th. Sub-2:10 man Masaya Taguchi dropped out after 25 km, hitting halfway in 1:05:10 but abruptly slowing after that. Club runner Tomomi Nakajima was the top Japanese woman to finish, 55th in 2:47:23. © 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

A few years back the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon reworked its course to try to minimize the headwinds for which it's famous. In its 70th running today that paid off more than ever before, with 25~30 kph winds from the northwest keeping things controlled in the first 10 km and then giving enough of a boost to the pace from there to 35 km to help put the top two under the course record of 2:08:01. Straight into the wind over the first 10 km the race went out reasonably, 2:08:16 pace through 5 km and 2:08:37 pace through 10 km. But after rounding the 10 km turnaround and picking up the tailwind things got faster, a sub-15 split over the next 5 km taking the projected finish time to mid-2:07 and going down as far as 2:07:12 before the last pacers stepped off at 30 km. At that point there were still over a dozen people left in the lead group, most of them debuting or doing a first serious marathon and only a few experienced athletes like #1-ranked Shuho Dairokuno (Asahi Kasei) and H...