japan running news

The Hakodate Half Marathon and Marathon took place June 28 on a course starting and finishing at Hakodate Dotsuku Sports Garden. 4,448 people ran the half marathon, with another 3,866 in the marathon for a total participant number of 8,314. Cheered on by the crowds, runners chased PBs through the exotic atmosphere of Hakodate's streets. A record-breaking 9.271 people entered the race, 5,037 in the half marathon and 4,234 in the marathon. At the opening ceremony mayor Jun Oizumi told onlookers, "I hope that the warm cheers of our local people along the course give runners strength, and that they enjoy the race til the very end." When the starting gun fired at 9:00 a.m. the runners rook off. True to the mayor's words, locals and official cheering squads supported them with loud cheering and performances. At Midorinoshima, a longstanding local restaurant served up curry and other dishes, giving participants a taste of Hakodate's delicious local cuisine. Jin Yuasa ...

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) and Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the Sendai International Half Marathon Sunday in Sendai, Shikama in 1:01:31 and Njeri in 1:09:20. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) was the top Japanese woman at 2nd overall. The men's race went through 5 km in 14:34 and 10 km in 29:22. Shikama ran alongside top competition including Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.), who has been running well in half marathons this season, and Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Naoki Koyama (Honda). On a course with many small ups and downs, Shikama attacked on a downhill just after 15 km, quickly breaking free of the lead group of 7. 13 seconds up by 20 km, Shikama covered the last 1.0975 km in 3:06 to seal his first Sendai title. A graduate of Juntendo University , Shikama is in his 4th season with Logisteed. At the 2024 National Corporate Half Marathon he ran 1:00:41, and at last year's East Japan Corporate Ekiden he won the Third Stage. In his marathon d...

The first two regional qualifying races for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships happened Monday in the two most competitive regions, the Tokyo-area East Japan region and Fukuoka-centered Kyushu region. The New Year Ekiden is pretty much the only major ekiden that doesn't have a seeded podium that guarantees top-placing teams a place at the follow year's race, meaning even the best of the best have to go through the formalities of a regional qualifier and all the disruption it brings to whatever fall racing schedule Japan's top corporate men might be trying to put together. 12 places were available in the East Japan race and 9 in Kyushu, and in honor of the New Year Ekiden's 70th anniversary one more slot was available in both regions to the next team to finish if they made it to the line within 10 minutes of the last regular qualifier. Logisteed took the top spot in East Japan thanks in a big way to a brilliant run on the race's lo...

  The winner of Tokyo's Year End Half Marathon in 2019,  Andy Buchanan  ran a crafty race to beat four sub-61 Japanese men and the debuting Australian  Isaac Heyne  at the Gold Coast Half Marathon . Smiling most of the way, Heyne led on 2:59/km pace through the turnaround point just before 11 km before Koki Kamata  took over. From there it was a series of turnovers that took the lead group down to just Heyne, favorite Shunsuke Shikama , 2:06 marathoner Daisuke Doi , and Buchanan. All of them made moves in the last 2 km, but Buchanan made the definitive one in the last km, pulling away to win in a PB 1:02:20. After falling slightly behind, Heyne fought back for 2nd in 1:02:22 with Doi getting Shikama on the line for 3rd, both clocking 1:02:25. Four other Japanese men including 2:05 marathoner Kenya Sonota  made the top 10. The women's race started out as a trio with Australians Leanne Pompeani  and Jessica Stenson , and two-time winner  Sara H...

Australia's Gold Coast Half Marathon and Marathon are big draws for Japanese corporate leaguers these days, especially with a big contingent from this year's National Corporate Half Marathon dominating the entry lists in the half. Two-time winner Sara Hall is top-ranked in the women's half with a 1:07:15 from Houston two years ago and will mostly be racing Leanne Pompeani for the win. Beyond that there's a big group at the 1:10 level including Japan's Rinka Hida , Yukari Nagatomo and Moe Shimizu who should all be in it for 3rd. The men's half is dominated by four Japanese men who broke 1:01 at the National Corporate Half in February, meaning that if the weather is decent then the 1:01:16 CR is likely to fall to Shunsuke Shikama , Koki Kamata , Soshi Suzuki or Daisuke Doi . That's a big if, though, with >50% chance of rain and a headwind in the 2nd half that's forecast to get stronger as the race goes along. The favorite for the win and a shot at...

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed), Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) and Chikako Mori (Sekisui Kagaku) won close races to take the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships titles Sunday in Yamaguchi. In the men's race, Shikama was head-to-head with 2024 New Year Ekiden First Stage winner Naoki Ota (Yakult), the entire way, together at 5km, 10km, 20 km, and breaking away together from the rest of the front pack coming into the stadium. In a sprint finish both runners clocked 1:00:41, with Shikama taking the win. Ota joined his older brother Tomoki Ota (Toyota) in breaking 61 minutes for the half, with Koki Kamata (Yakult) 3rd in 1:00:47 and the top 10 breaking 61 minutes. The third major Japanese half marathon in 3 weeks, depth was solid with 37 under 62 minutes, 85 under 63 minutes and 111 under 64. One prominent DNF was 2017 runner-up Joseph Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko), 14:47 at 5 km and 29:45 at 10 km but not making it to the 15 km mat. The lack of t...

Yuka Ando (Wacoal) and Desta Burka (Denso) raced each other to a new Osaka Half Marathon course record, while the men's race saw a very strange apparent DQ of winner Taiyo Iwasaki (JFE Steel). Running with Wacoal male coaching staff member Seiya Morimoto as pacer, Ando set out on pace to go sub-68 with the goal of bettering her 1:08:13 PB from the 2022 National Corporate Half. Burka, who had only run 1:09:31 once in 2021, was right there next to her the entire time as the pace held steady through 15 km. But as Ando started to fade over the next 5 km Burka dropped her and opened a small lead. It looked like the win and CR would be hers, but over the last km Ando fought back and passed her on the track to score the win by 2 seconds in a 1:08:18 CR. "My goal was to beat my PB, but I'm glad I got close," she said post-race. Burka's 1:08:20 was also well under the old CR of 1:09:43 and a PB by over a minute. The men's race saw 42-year-old Mongolian Ser-Od Bat-...

Already the course record-breaker at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden this season, 2021 Hakone Ekiden champion Komazawa University came one step away from its first-ever triple crown of single-season ekiden wins as it won a highly competitive 2023 Hakone Ekiden Day One over defending champ Aoyama Gakuin University and last year's 6th placer Chuo University . Things got off to an unexpected start when Select Team runner Hayate Nitta of non-qualifier Ikuei University decided to take his one and only Hakone shot and run it up to his ability on the 21.3 km 1st leg even though the rest of the field opted to jog. At one point Nitta had a lead of almost a minute and a half, but as beautiful as it would have been for him to pull it off, Meiji University 's Shunpei Tomita and Komazawa's Kensuke Tsubura still managed to run him down in the final kilometer. Tomita took the stage win in 1:02:44, 1:02:08 half marathon pace vs. his 1:02:10 PB despite the slow s...

Japan's two major April marathons returned Sunday for the first time since pre-pandemic, both smaller than usual but a welcome step forward even as other races this summer and beyond continue to cancel. The Nagano Marathon saw an exciting men's race with local amateur Junichi Ushiyama surging hard with 5 km to go to break Akihiro Kaneko and Yuya Yamashita and win in a PB 2:14:42. Kaneko and Yamashita, who run for rival northern Tokyo supermarket chains Comodi Iida and Sunbelx , were head-to-head almost to the end before Kaneko broke free, taking 2nd in 2:15:22 to Yamashita's 2:15:26. The top nine men all went sub-2:20. Yamashita's teammate Akane Sekino led solo in the women's race , running 2:41:20 to win by almost three minutes over corporate leaguer Kasumi Yoshida of the Aichi Denki team, 2nd in 2:44:19. Tokyo-based club runner Asami Morino was 3rd in 2:44:35 with the top five women all sub-2:50. At the Kasumigaura Marathon , Kotaro Motonaga , a 4th-year...