japan running news

by Koichi Iwasa of DogsorCaravan On Aug. 2 the 51st Mount Fuji Ekiden took place, starting and finishing in Gotemba, Shizuoka and covering 11 stages up to the peak of Mount Fuji and back down. Teams of 6 runners tackle the tough course, each running handling one uphill and one downhill leg with the 6th runner reaching the peak before turning around to head back to the exchange zone where they started. The Heisei Mountaineering Club team took the overall win in 3:50:39, beating 9-time winner Takigahara SDF Base by 2:07 and stopping them from achieving a 10-year victory streak. The independent team division and SDF team division were separated in 2005, and this was the first time that the winning independent team outran the fastest SDF team to take the overall title. The roster that Heisei Mountaineering put together for this year's race raised eyebrows among everyone familiar with the Japanese trail running scene. Handling the 5th and 7th legs was Ruy Ueda , winner of the Fuji M...

Running from the foot of Mount Fuji to its peak and back on the Gotemba route, the 50th anniversary Mt. Fuji Ekiden took place Aug. 3 in Gotemba, Shizuoka. A total of 100 teams in the combined SDF base and independent divisions competed to show what they could do in what is called the toughest race in Japan. Starting and finishing at Gotemba Field, the 48.19 km race is divided into 11 legs, with each team fielding 6 runners. Each runner handles one uphill and one downhill leg, with the 6th runner doing a non-stop run up the final section to the peak and back. Following a flyover by jets from the SDF Iruma Base in honor of the race's 50th running, mayor Masami Katsumata and local influencer Nano Nae fired the starting gun to get the race underway. The turnaround point at the peak of Mount Fuji is 3199 m above Gotemba field. A temperature difference of 20˚ adds to the challenge for athletes trying to make the next exchange zone. Most teams put their best runner on the uphill 5th a...

The 78th Fuji Mountain Race was held on Friday, July 25. Between the long course race, 21 km climbing 3000 m to the peak of Mount Fuji, and the Fifth Station race, 15 km climbing 1480 m, a total of 3,363 people from across Japan and around the world took part. In the long course race, Yuri Yoshizumi , 39, won the women's title for the 7th time in a row, with accomplished trail runner Ruy Ueda , 31, winning the men's title for the first time. Yoshimi Tanaka , 33, won the Fifth Station women's title and Yuki Yamada , 27, the men's title, both of them winning for the 2nd time. Yoshizumi, a pro mountain runner representing Fujisan GX Holdings who regularly trains on the Fuji Mountain Race course, said, "I remember the entire course." This time around Yoshizumi took the lead before hitting the hiking trail part of the course and pushed the pace from the Eighth Station onwards. "I was hitting it so hard that I couldn't respond to the people who were cheer...

Now running for the Sunbelx corporate team on an individual pro contract, Hibiki Yoshida (22) tuned up for his debut at the July 25 Fuji Mountain Race with a test run to the peak of Mount Fuji at 3776 m. Covering the distance from the Fifth Station to the summit, 6 km with 1520 m elevation gain on rough trails, in 2 hours, Yoshida said, "It was fun!" As a 4th-year at Soka University this past January Yoshida ran the highly competitive Second Stage at the 101st Hakone Ekiden, covering the 23.1 km net uphill leg in 1:05:43, the fastest time ever run by a Japanese athlete and equivalent to a 1:00:02 half marathon. After Hakone Yoshida said that post-graduation he planned to pursue a career in both traditional running and in trail running. His first big trail race will be the Fuji Mountain Race's 78th edition. The Fuji Mountain Race is divided into two divisions, a 15 km short course to the Fifth Station with 1480 m elevation gain and the 21 km long course to the summit c...

Two classic midsummer ekidens happened during the Paris Olympics, the 77th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden in Akita and the 49th Mount Fuji Ekiden in Shizuoka. We didn't have time to cover them then, but better late than never. The Mount Fuji Ekiden was held Aug. 4 in Gotemba, Shizuoka starting at Gotemba Field, climbing 3258 m to the peak of Mt. Fuji, then making the return trip for a total distance of 48.19 km in 11 stages. Each runner on the 6-member teams handled one uphill leg and one downhill leg except the sixth runner, whose stage included the final climb to the peak and then the start of the descent after getting the tasuki stamped by a monk waiting at the top. For the 8th year in a row the Takigahara SDF Base team won the overall title, running 3:51:35 to win just 24 seconds off last year's mark. Individual stage winners from Takigahara included 2-time Hasetsune Cup winner Yuya Kawasaki on the uphill 4th leg, vertical king Toru Miyahara on the 5th leg, and Hiroya Morig...

For the 7th edition in a row, the Takigahara SDF Base team dominated the 48th Mt. Fuji Ekiden , a 11-stage, 48.19 km race up Mount Fuji and back down, with 3258 m elevation gain on the way up, 3199 m loss on the way down, every runner having to handle both an uphill and downhill leg, and the top men averaging 10:39/km on the steepest climb and as fast as 2:10/km on the steepest of the descent. Takigahara faced challenges early on from last year's 8th-place Moriyama 35th Infantry Regiment team and, in its debut, the pro Eldoreso team featuring 100 km NR holder Jumpei Yamaguchi . The anchor stage winner last year, Moriyama's Toshihiro Hayashi pulled off a rare double stage win this time, leading on the 6.54 km, 243 m uphill First Stage and winning the 4.88 km, 184 m downhill Eleventh Stage. Eldoreso's Takumi Kato duplicated that feat, winning the 4.64 km, 345 m uphill Second Stage and passing Moriyama to move into the overall lead, then winning the 4.64 km, 345 m downhi...

Along with Akita's Towada Hachimantai Ekiden another midsummer classic returned Sunday after cancelations in 2020 and 2021, the 47th edition of the  Mt. Fuji Ekiden . An eleven-stage race featuring 82 teams of six, the Mt. Fuji Ekiden sees the first five runners on each team work their way up the slopes of Mt. Fuji, first on roads and then on trails. The sixth runners climbs the final few kilometers to the summit 3258 m above the race's starting point, has his tasuki sash stamped by a priest at the shrine waiting there, then begins the descent. The first five runners then have to each a second time, downhill this time. Some of the downhill stages are wild, with powdery gravel covering steep slopes, and scenes like this one from 2014 at the exchange from the Seventh to Eighth Stage, are legendary. Spectators make the climb to the exchange zones just to see it happen. Doesn't it look like fun? The video up top is from the last edition in 2019 , when the Takigahara SDF Base ...

http://gazette.com/touru-miyahara-captures-pikes-peak-ascent-after-andy-wacker-leads-them-astray/article/1557459

http://gazette.com/japanese-runner-stands-tall-at-first-pikes-peak-marathon/article/1504998

by Brett Larner With a near-miss from typhoon #6, one of Japan's most difficult and popular midsummer races, the 64th Fuji Mountain Race , took place as scheduled July 22.   Toru Miyahara , who set the course record of 2:32:40 in the 21 km, 3000 m climb Summit Division five years ago, returned to take five minutes off his mark as he ran 2:27:41 for a new course record and his third win at the event's longest distance.  Runner-up Satoshi Kato , the winner of last year's 15 km, 1460 climb Fifth Stage Division making his debut at the full distance, was fast enough to have won most years but was nearly fourteen minutes behind Miyahara, finishing in 2:41:11.  Last year's women's Fifth Stage Division winner Mina Ogawa  also made a successful transition to the long race as she won in 3:10:45, a winning time only four women have bettered in the 27 years that the Fuji Mountain Race has had a women's division.   Kei Kikushima  and Mitsuko Hirose  won the men's...

by Brett Larner Heavy rain cut the 2009 Fuji Tozan Mountain Race down to size, but two-time defending women's champion Yuri Kanbara and 2006 men's winner Toru Miyahara nevertheless prevailed again to pick up this year's titles. With conditions dangerous above Mt. Fuji's 2256 m-high 5th Stage on the July 24 race morning, organizers made the decision 30 minutes before the 7:00 a.m. start to shorten the event's 21 km long, 3000 m elevation gain Summit Race. Rather than reaching the summit, athletes in the long race would end at the 5th stage along with the event's 15 km long, 1480 m elevation gain 5th Stage Race entrants. This meant the true uphill specialists in the field such as Kanbara were at a competitive disadvantage against faster athletes who could withstand the relatively mild climb and paved first half of the 5th Stage course. The rain let up just minutes before the start, leaving the fields in the two divisions with the coolest, most ideal conditions in...