japan running news

The 2018 edition of Japan's premier women-only half marathon and road 10 km. Follow the links at the end of this clip for the rest of the race.

The first of Japan's selection races for next year's World Half Marathon Championships, the Sanyo Ladies Road Race saw a pack of seven including last year's winner Honami Maeda (Tenmaya), 2:21 marathoner Yuka Ando (Wacoal), the U.K.'s Charlotte Purdue , Canadian national record holder Rachel Cliff and others stay together until almost 15 km before Purdue put the pedal down. Maeda, winner of September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials, tried to stay with her, but Purdue had the win in her, taking first in 1:08:45, the fastest time of her career on a record-legal course. Maeda was next in 1:09:08, bettering her PB from her win last year by 4 seconds. Moving up from a 2nd-place finish in the 10 km in Sanyo last year, her teammate Sara Miyake (Tenmaya) was 3rd in 1:09:23 to give Tenmaya a good chance of having two women on the Worlds team. Ando was the only other woman under 70 minutes at 1:09:38. Cliff, who broke the Canadian marathon NR in Nagoya in Ma...

The 37th Sanyo Ladies Road Race took place Dec. 23 in Okayama on a course starting and finishing at City Lights Stadium. In the half marathon division, MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials qualifier Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) won her first Sanyo title in 1:09:12, the fastest time by a Japanese woman in over 5 years. Dropping the lead pack just a kilometer into the race, Maeda ran solo the entire way to become the only Japanese woman under 1:10 this year. Australian Ellie Pashley was 2nd in 1:09:20, with Maeda's teammate and fellow MGC qualifier Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) 3rd in 1:10:37. National record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) was 6th in 1:11:32. Both Ohara and Fukushi are scheduled to run January's Osaka International Women's Marathon . In the 10 km division, Kenyan Grace Kimanzi (Starts) equalled the 31:54 course record set in 2007 by future Olympic marathon gold medalist Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia. Tenmaya runners Sara Miyake and Mai Nishiwaki were a distant 2nd ...

The organizers of the Dec. 23 Sanyo Ladies Road Race have announced the elite field for this year's 37th running. Honami Maeda of local corporate team Tenmaya and others preparing for next September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials will be in the field, along with national record holder and Rio Olympian Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) who will return to Sanyo for the first time since 2005. The half marathon division promises to be an exciting race between Olympic contenders. Among the eight women to have qualified for the MGC Race so far, Maeda, teammate Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) and Reia Iwade (Under Armour), the 2nd-place Japanese woman at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon, will face off. Others include Fukushi, Asia Games 5000 m team member Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera), under-20 marathon national record holder Ayaka Fujimoto (Kyocera) and Australian Ellie Pashley , who represented her country at this year's World Half Marathon Championships. It looks set to be ...

Japan-based Kenyan Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) outran defending champion Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) and three of Japan's best upcoming young talents to cut 13 seconds off the course record as she won the 36th edition of the Sanyo Ladies Road Race half marathon. Kamulu, Ohara and 2017 national cross country champion Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) set off near 1:08-flat pace, a time no Japanese woman has cleared in almost 12 years. Behind them, Rio Olympian Miyuki Uehara and the debuting Azusa Sumi (Univ. Ent.) went at a more conservative pace while keeping the leaders in sight. After 5 km Kamulu through in a surge to drop her Japanese competition, going through 10 km in 32-flat and pushing on alone to finish in 1:08:04, a new course record and a PB by well over a minute and a half. 山陽女子ロードレース ハーフの部 優勝 パウリン・カムル選手（ルートインホテルズ）1:08:04 大会新！ #山陽女子ロードレース pic.twitter.com/3uojPTmBJY — 岡山陸上マニア (@okariku333) December 23, 2017 Behind her, Ohara and Ichiyama fought to keep it on sub-1:...

The organizers of the Sanyo Ladies Road Race have announced the elite fields for this year's 36th running on Dec. 23, a selection race for the women's national team for next March's World Half Marathon Championships in Spain. Honami Maeda (21, Tenmaya), winner of August's Hokkaido Marathon, and London World Championships team members Miyuki Uehara (22, Daiichi Seimei) and Mao Kiyota (24, Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) lead the list of young hopefuls for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic team who will grace Okayama's streets. All three will run the half marathon, where they will face last year's winner Rei Ohara (Tenmaya). Also entered are 2015 Beijing World Championships 5000 m team member Azusa Sumi (21, Univ. Ent.), Ayaka Fujimoto (20, Kyocera) who earlier this year ran 2:27:08 at the Tokyo Marathon to become Japan's fastest-ever teen marathoner, and 2017 World XC Championships team member Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal). London World Championships marathon 13th-placer Cha...

2017 London World Championships 5000 m and 10000 m runner Ayuko Suzuki (25, Japan Post) left from Narita Airport on Sept. 18 for altitude training in Boulder, Colorado. Two days earlier at a half marathon in Czech Republic, Yuta Shitara (25, Honda), like Suzuki born in 1991, broke the 10-year-old Japanese men's half marathon national record in a time of 1:00:17. "It's a big motivation to see an athlete the same age as me doing something like that," she said. Showing her determination to be one of her generation's leaders, she added, "I'll be 28 [at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics] , right in my prime mentally and physically. I want to run big too." In the leadup to the Tokyo Olympics Suzuki has the marathon in sight along with the track. "I need to run a half marathon and marathon somewhere once to check [how well they suit me] ," she said. "Coach and I will be talking about it." If everything goes according to plan, December...

by Brett Larner 山陽女子ロードレース大会　ハーフマラソンの部　優勝　小原怜選手（天満屋）　１時間１０分０４秒 pic.twitter.com/TcCK4fVuTz — M.Kawaguchi (@rikujolove) December 23, 2016 Japan's Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru (Team Starts) went it alone to win the 35th anniversary Sanyo Ladies' Road Race half marathon and 10 km divisions with strong negative split runs. After a slow 17:00 first 5 km in the half Ohara got to work, covering the next 5 km in 16:24 and opening a 16-second lead over a pack of nine led by Rio Olympics marathoner Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku).  From there she never faltered, her pace holding steady all the way to a 1:10:03 win.  38 seconds behind, Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko) took 2nd in 1:10:42 with relative newcomer Ayaka Fujimoto (Team Kyocera) 3rd in 1:11:20.  Ito faded to 5th in 1:11:39 just ahead of London Olympics marathoner Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya).  Invited Australians Eloise Wellings and Cassie Fien were both DNFs, Fien dropping out befo...

http://www.sanyonews.jp/article/459054 translated by Brett Larner 327 women are set to run the 35th anniversary Sanyo Ladies Road Race Dec. 23 in Okayama.  117 are entered in the Yuko Arimori Cup Half Marathon, with 210 entered in the Kinue Hitomi Cup 10 km.  Top-level domestic and international athletes including some who ran in this summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympics are set to bring fireworks to the streets of Okayama. The half marathon is led by Rio marathoner Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) and features last year's runner-up local Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and 2015 World Championships team member Risa Shigetomo  (Team Tenmaya). Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko), who ran brilliantly at last month's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships, and Reia Iwade (Team Noritz), who set the junior national record of 1:09:45 in Sanyo in 2013, are also on the list.  Rio 5000 m 9th-placer Eloise Wellings and 2016 World Half Marathon Championships team member Cassie Fi...

by Brett Larner photos by @rikujolove 2013 winner and 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Kaptich Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) returned to the Sanyo Ladies' Road Race half marathon today, breaking her own course record to win in 1:08:17.  A large pack of 15 including Chepyego, top-ranked Japanese women Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya), Michi Numata (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) and Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko) and 2015 Marugame Half winner Eloise Wellings (Australia) went out conservatively just over 1:10 pace.  The pack shrank to 6 as Chepyego pushed the pace into 1:07 territory approaching 10 km, and with a surge early into the second half she was away.  Chepyego ran free to the end, cutting 7 seconds off her 2013 CR and finishing just outside the top 10 in the world this year. Ohara, already with sub-1:10 credentials to her name, was left chasing Chepyego alongside the debuting Pauline Kamulu (Team Route Inn Hotels).  When Kamulu struggled i...

http://www.sanyonews.jp/article/265824/1/ translated and edited by Brett Larner The elite field for the 34th Sanyo Women's Road Race on Dec. 23 was announced on Nov. 30.  The first selection race for next March's Cardiff World Half Marathon Championships in the U.K., Sanyo features world-class talent like 2014 Copenhagen World Half Marathon bronze medalist and Sanyo course record holder Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko), 2015 Marugame Half Marathon winner Eloise Wellings (Australia), 2015 Beijing World Championships 10000 m runner Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and more.  A large number of women aiming to make next year's Rio Olympic team will be lining up in the half marathon.  Alongside Ohara are 2014 Asian Games marathon 4th-placer Eri Hayakawa (Team Toto), 2014 World Half Marathon Championships team members Sayo Nomura (Team Daiichi Seimei) and Chieko Kido (Team Canon AC Kyushu), and rising young talent like 2015 Hokkaido Marathon winner Yui Okada (Team Ot...

by Brett Larner It's one of the busiest weekends of the year across Japan, with three major road races, regional championship corporate ekiden action, two big track meets and even some overseas collegiates. The biggest race on the schedule is Sunday's Ageo City Half Marathon in Ageo, Saitama, a local race used by coaches of university teams bound for Japan's most prestigious sporting event, January's Hakone Ekiden, to pare down their rosters to the final candidates for their Hakone lineups.  As a result Ageo regularly features jaw-dropping numbers, with close to 200 going under 1:06 and 4~500 under 1:10.  In a program put together by JRN, for the last three years the NYC Half Marathon has invited the top two Japanese collegiates in Ageo to its race in March, and in 2013 the invite had a measurable impact.  In its first 25 years Ageo saw 36 people break 1:03.  At last year's 26th running 18 more runners, all Japanese collegiates, broke 1:03. Defending champ...

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sports/201404/0006869505.shtml translated by Brett Larner 19-Year-Old Big Hope Reia Iwade (Team Noritz) Riding the Wave to Hyogo Relay Carnival Grand Prix Women's 10000 m Just 19, Iwade will be showing off her best stuff on home ground in Hyogo prefecture this weekend.  In her first year in the corporate leagues she went through tremendous growth that took her all the way to March's World Half Marathon Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Ahead of her first serious 10000 m, Iwade is strongly motivated as she says, "I want to earn the right to wear the Rising Sun again as soon as possible." Iwade was born in Mie prefecture.  She was the star runner at Aichi prefecture's Toyokawa H.S. , and after graduating she joined Hyogo's Noritz corporate team where she began to make an impact on the ekiden circuit.  A few days after her 19th birthday, at December's Sanyo Women's Road Race half marathon she ran a Japanese juni...

by Brett Larner click here for video highlights courtesy of Sanyo Newspapers The world's last elite half marathon of the year took place Dec. 23 in Okayama, with a large group of elite Japanese and foreign women squaring off at the Sanyo Women's Road Race half marathon and 10 km. #1-ranked Japan-based Kenyan Sally Chepyego  (Team Kyudenko) was the class of the field in the half-marathon division, blasting a solo 1:08:24 course record to take the 2013 title.  Facing impending retirement, 2013 London Marathon 3rd-placer Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) ran a race characteristically unmotivated to compete for the win, sitting far back in the pack until late in the race and then turning on her usual surge to move up through the field, ultimately taking 2nd a minute behind the highly motived Chepyego in 1:09:24.   Felista Wanjugu  (Kenya/Team Universal Entertainment) and Mai Ito  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) ran up in the chase formation with Akaba early in the race before ...

by Brett Larner A quick weekend preview as JRN is in international transit for the holidays. The Nittai University Time Trials track series wraps up Saturday with its annual women-only edition featuring fast 3000 m, 5000 m and 10000 m heats. Sunday sees the National High School Ekiden Championships go down, with both the boys' and girls' races broadcast live nationwide and commercial-free on NHK.  The level of competition is extremely high; based on track credentials the 2012 NCAA XC champions University of Oregon women's team would have struggled to make the top ten in last year's girls' race , while the boys' race features at least five high schoolers with 5000 m bests under 14:00.  The National High School Championships offer the first chance to see future greats, like Samuel Wanjiru  in the past, in action. The Dec. 23 national holiday on Monday is the date of the first running of the newly relaunched  National University Women's Invitational Ek...

http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/feature/sports/other/2013/11/30/20131130225458.html translated and edited by Brett Larner The invited athlete list for Japan's last major road race of the year, the 32nd Sanyo Women's Road Race on Dec. 23 in Okayama, was released by race organisers on Nov. 30. Coinciding with main sponsor Sanyo Newspapers' 135th anniversary, the Yuko Arimori Cup half marathon division at the Sanyo Women's Road Race will for the first time be a selection race for the World Half Marathon Championships national team, with next year's World Half due to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark next March. Targeting the first three-peat in Sanyo history, 2013 National Corporate Half Marathon champion Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) heads the invited field along with 2013 Hokkaido Marathon winner Yuko Watanabe  (Team Edion) and, from overseas, London Olympian Desiree Davila  (U.S.A.).  Others in the half  marathon include past World Championships marathoners Mai I...

http://www.excite.co.jp/News/sports_g/20121223/Jiji_20121223F725.html http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/news/121223/oth12122314090010-n1.htm http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/news/121223/oth12122317160013-n1.htm http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/news/121223/oth12122317380016-n1.htm translated and edited by Brett Larner At the Dec. 23 Sanyo Ladies Road Race in Okayama, defending champion Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) ran 1:09:56 to successfully claim her second-straight Yuko Arimori Cup Half Marathon title, breaking away at 18 km to redeem her disappointing 8th-place finish at November's Yokohama International Women's Marathon and bad performance at last week's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships.  "I didn't want to end the year with nothing but bad runs," she said with a smile.  "There was nothing good about this year, but with this run I make a fresh start."  Aiming for the Moscow World Championships team, she plans to run either Bo...

http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/news_s/news/d/2012120123222333/ translated and edited by Brett Larner The organizers of the 31st Sanyo Ladies Road Race in Okayama have finalized the elite field for the Dec. 23 race.  130 women will line up in the Yuko Arimori Cup Half Marathon division, with 234 in the Kinue Hitomi Cup 10 km division, making for a combined field of 364 that almost ties last year's record number of entries, 366. 2011 Daegu World Championships marathon 5th-place finisher Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) and other world-class competitors will grace the streets of Okayama with their running.  Having set the half marathon course record of 1:09:16 last year, it looks as though Akaba will again be the one dictating the terms of competition.  2011 Tokyo Marathon winner Noriko Higuchi  (Team Wacoal) should be her major rival.  Local Team Tenmaya will supply Beijing Olympics marathoner Yurika Nakamura , team captain Yuka Izumi  and first-year pro...

by Brett Larner Daegu World Championships marathon 5th-place finisher Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) ran an aggressive race Dec. 23 at the 30th Sanyo Women's Road Race half marathon, winning in a 1:09:16 record for the hilly course over a tough field including marathon national record holder Mizuki Noguchi  (Team Sysmex). Akaba, Noguchi, 2010's top female Japanese half marathoner Yoko Miyauchi  (Team Kyocera), last year's Sanyo 10 km division winner Kenyan Sally Chepyego  (Team Kyudenko), and Akaba's Daegu teammate Mai Ito  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) took the race out at course record pace.  The pack ran the early stages fast enough that Noguchi, running as a test for her comeback at next month's Osaka International Women's Marathon, lost touch after only 7 km.  The lead four hit 10 km in 32:45, on track for a 1:09:06 finish, before Akaba surged away to mid-68 pace and built a lead that was never cracked.  Fading in the last 5 km, she neverthele...

http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/feature/sports/other/2011/12/15/20111215113738.html translated by Brett Larner The Sanyo Women's Road Race in Okayama will celebrate its 30th running on Dec. 23.  Consisting of the Yuko Arimori Cup Half-Marathon and the Kinue Hitomi 10 km, Sanyo is an important domestic event for women looking to put themselves into the ring for an Olympic or World Championships team. Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) is the best there is in today's Japanese women's marathon world.  Her record in 2011 was scintillating.  In her fifth marathon she won January's Osaka International Women's Marathon, then followed up with a 2:24:09 PB in London.  Missing a medal by only 21 seconds, Akaba then finished 5th at August's World Championships, the top woman on the Japanese team.  Having spent the last three years on the transition from the track to the marathon, in her mind Akaba can look at her progression with some satisfaction.  "I'm picking up ex...