japan running news

Dark horse Masato Arao and Paris Olympics marathon team alternate Ai Hosoda took the top Japanese spots in the TCS Sydney Marathon 's first edition as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, both finishing 6th. Ranked 20th in the field, Arao, who this time last year was working a full-time job after not getting a corporate team contract post-college, came to Sydney for his international debut with the A-goal of making top 10 off a 1:30:50 win at the hilly Ome 30 km in February and an almost 10-minute PB of 2:08:05 in his second marathon at Tokyo in February. After driving the course and seeing the major hills in the first 15 km he opted out of going with the lead group, deciding to stick with the 2nd group on 2:08 pace until things leveled out after 15 km and seeing how it went. As it turned out the lead group with all the big names was a lot slower than planned, never more than a minute ahead of the 2nd group including Arao, Kento Kikutani , Kosei Machida and Australians Haft...

The Tokyo Marathon is back Sunday with two of the biggest names in the sport at the tops of its women's and men's fields, Sifan Hassan and Eliud Kipchoge . The weather is looking great, so expect fast races. Nippon TV is broadcasting it live from 9:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. local time, with streaming on TVer , Hulu and Nittere Tada . NTV's international broadcast will be available in over 150 countries, with JRN's Brett Larner on commentary again this year. Leaderboard and tracking will be here . A quick breakdown of the major stories in the race and field listing: The Women's Race After winning her first two marathons in London and Chicago last year, Hassan is the fastest in the Tokyo field at 2:13:44. A win here would put her at 3/3 in Abbott World Marathon Majors titles and halfway to her six stars. Budapest World Championships gold medalist Amane Beriso Shankule and last year's winner Rosemary Wanjiru are her toughest competition, Amane with a 2:14:58 win...

The Tokyo Marathon is back for its 2024 race with deep fields of ten sub-2:20 women and eleven sub-2:05 men led by 2023 winners Rosemary Wanjiru and Chalu Deso Gelmisa , 2023 world champions  Amane Beriso Shankule and Victor Kiplangat , and top-ranked Sifan Hassan and Eliud Kipchoge . Last year's top three wheelchair women Manuel Schar , Tsubasa Kina and Madison de Rosario all return, with men's 2nd and 3rd-placers Tomoki Suzuki and Sho Watanabe both back in the absence of winner Marcel Hug . Hassan is the only one of the top five-ranked women who hasn't run Tokyo before, but that's probably not going to give her much of a competitive disadvantage. Budapest gold medalist Amane is her toughest competition on paper, but while Wanjiru was only 6th in Budapest the possibility of a late-race battle between any combination of Hassan, Amane and Wanjiru is pretty exciting. Tokyo doesn't count in Olympic team qualification for women, so it's a slight surprise tha...

With the Oregon 22 World Championships coming to a close on July 25, next year and beyond are already on the horizon. Having missed her likely spot on the Japanese team after an injury kept her out of May's 10000 m National Championships, Seira Fuwa (19, 2nd yr., Takushoku Univ.) and her coach Toshiharu Igarashi traveled to Eugene to watch the women's 10000 m in person. Coach Igarashi talked about their reasons for going and their plans for the future. "I went to see the 2011 Daegu World Championships, and the atmosphere was really something unique," he said. "The difference between watching it on TV and experiencing it in the stadium was incredible." To help Fuwa prepare for her own upcoming debut at the international level, he wanted her to get the same experience of the level and atmosphere at an early stage in her career. Igarashi suggested the trip to the U.S. to her on May 4 right after announcing her withdrawal from the National Championships. ...

"I hate running. There's only pain. But, it's work and I'm getting paid to do it, so I can't say that I hate it. I have to do my job." Still, she's come right out and said it without hiding her words. Hitomi Niiya (32, Sekisui Kagaku) isn't your average athlete. She's the leader of Japanese women's long distance, having set a new national record of 1:06:38 for the half marathon in January this year. She's a pro who cares about her results and lives by the words, "running fast is all that matters."  Despite scintillating 9th place and 5th place finishes in the 10000 m at the 2012 London Olympics and 2013 Moscow World Championships, she retired in 2014 at the age of just 25. Returning to racing in June, 2018, within two years she was breaking PB after PB and had the Tokyo Olympics in range. Having said that she would "absolutely never" do another marathon, she now says, "there's a possibility." She's a n...

Last month Hitomi Niiya published her training log for the 100 days leading up to her national record at January's Houston Half Marathonn  on her coach Masato Yokota 's blog in three parts . Receiving dozens of questions about it after posting, the two of them took a stab at answering some of them in an Ekiden News-moderated Q&A format on the same blog. JRN will be publishing it in translation over the next four days. Q. What were the main differences in reaction from elite athletes and amateur runners to what you posted? Coach : Top-level athletes pretty much never publish their training programs in detail, so there was a lot of interest, both inside Japan and elsewhere. Q.  Daichi Seimei corporate team coach Sachiko Yamashita said thanks for Twitter for posting it. Coach:  I replied and told her reading it would cost her, but in all seriousness I'd like to hear what people thought of it. In particular, I wonder what corporate league and Hakone Ekiden ...