japan running news

The first meet in this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge  in Hokkaido was the main meet of the weekend, but there was more action near Tokyo than in a normal year too as organizers sought to keep the number of people in one location down. At the HDC Shibetsu Meet the men's 3000 m was the highlight, with Yohei Ikeda  (Kanebo) winning in 7:56.10 to lead the top eight under eight minutes. Even just five years ago it was rare to see more than one Japanese man break eight in an entire year, a sign of how much things have changed in both shoes and priorities.  Titus Wambua  (SID Group) ran 13:22.49 for 1st in the men's 5000 m A-heat, Kenyans sweeping the top four spots. In 5th Kotaro Kondo  set a new school record for ekiden power Aoyama Gakuin University , running 13:34.88.  34-year-old Yuki Sato  (SGH Group) was 6th in 13:35.74, bettering the time he ran at Nationals less than two weeks ago by 3 seconds. Women's results in Shibetsu were low-key, Sakiko Na...

by Brett Larner Two major women's ekidens took place Nov. 11 on opposite coasts of Japan.  For the second year in a row, the Kanagawa Prefecture  team set a course record to outrun Nagano Prefecture  for the win at the 28th running of Fukushima's East Japan Women's Ekiden, an event featuring teams made up of runners from junior high to pro from eighteen regions in eastern Japan.  Kanagawa's Rui Aoyama  led off with a win by a hair over last year's stage winner Yuko Shimizu  of Nagano after a brutal head-to-head battle of surges on the 6.0 km First Stage.  Nagano's second runner Honoka Yuzawa  took over the lead, a position Nagano occupied for three stages before losing it for good to Kanagawa on the Fifth Stage.  Kanagawa covered the nine-stage, 42.195 course in 2:16:16 to break its own course record set last year, with Nagano ultimately finishing nearly two minutes back in 2:18:12. The Tokyo  team, only 6th last year, had a str...

by Brett Larner Despite going through the heats and final of the 1500 m and the qualifying heats for the 3000 m, Kenyans Rosemary Wanjiru  (Aomori Yamada H.S.) and Mary Waithera  (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) saved the best for last, braving temperatures over 30 degrees to smash their PBs and go 1-2 in the 3000 m final on the last day of the 2012 Japanese National H.S. Track & Field Championships, Aug. 2 and Niigata's Big Swan Stadium.  The winner of both Heat 1 and the 1500 m final, Waithera pushed the pace from the start but was unable to top Heat 3 winner Wanjiru, who lopped a stunning 16 seconds off her best to finish in a high-quality 8:51.97 for the win.  Unable to match Wanjiru, Waithera still took 6 seconds off her personal best as she finished a half second back in 8:52.59.  Heat 2 winner and Japanese favorite Miyuki Uehara  (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) was 3 seconds off her best but strong enough to hold off rival Sakiko Naito  (Funabashi Civic H.S.) f...

by Brett Larner This weekend's main track action came at regional high school championships across the country as Japan's best young distance athletes sought places at the July 29-Aug. 2 National High School Track & Field Championships  in Niigata.  The most noteworthy results came in the girls' 3000 m, where three regions saw the top pair go under the meet record.   Miyuki Uehara  (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) made headlines with a prefectural record 9:06.91 MR at the Kagoshima regional meet, the fastest time of the weekend.  Uehara was so dominating that runner-up Misuzu Nakahara  (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.), the only other woman to go under 9:20 this weekend, was also under the old meet record but nearly 10 seconds behind. Uehara certainly looks like the favorite for this summer's national meet, despite the best efforts of rivals Sakiko Naito  (Funabashi Shiritsu H.S.), who set a MR 9:21.60 at the Chiba regional meet, and Miki Hirai  (Shiroishi H....

by Brett Larner Nagano anchor Aki Odagiri tries to hold off Kanagawa's Mika Yoshikawa with 450 m to go. Click photo for video highlights courtesy of Fukushima TV. On Japan's busiest weekend of ekiden action , some of the best of it came at the first major event held in Fukushima since March's disasters, the East Japan Women's Ekiden, a regional version of January's National Women's Ekiden with 18 prefectural teams made up of runners ranging from junior high to pro. 2009 winner Nagano Pref.'s Yuko Shimizu  took the race out hard, winning the 6.0 km First Stage by 18 seconds over Miyagi Pref.'s Hiroko Shoi  as pre-race favorites Kanagawa Pref. and Chiba Pref. sat back in 7th and 14th.  Kanagawa's second runner Hitomi Nakamura  ran a stage best to bring her team with 13 seconds of the lead, but over the next two stages the gap grew again to 22 seconds.  The remaining five stages were tense and dramatic as each of Kanagawa's runners in turn cl...