japan running news

Yuji Iwata age: 32 sponsor: MHPS graduated from: Fukuoka Kogyo H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:09:30, 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon PB: 2:09:30, 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 14:08.35 (2014) 10000 m: 28:53.82 (2010) half marathon: 1:03:38 (2011) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:09:30 – PB 7th, 2018 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:15:09 46th, 2018 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:24:00 other major results: 22nd, 2019 Shibetsu Half Marathon, 1:06:44 3rd, 2019 New Year Ekiden Seventh Stage (15.5 km), 45:50 8th, 2017 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, 2:12:15 4th, 2015 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:17:29 One of the things about Japanese marathoning, especially on the men’s side, is that the depth makes it so that there’s usually going to be some random guy who busts a 2:08~2:10 out of nowhere. Put Iwata into that category. One of only three men in the field who didn’t go to university, at age 32 Iwata has been in th...

Kenyan Razini Lemeteki (Takushoku Univ.) and relative unknown Nanami Aoki (Iwatani Sangyo) took the top spots in hot and sunny conditions at the Shibetsu Half Marathon in Hokkaido. With Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) doing early frontrunning in the men's race only to fade to a 20th-place finish in 1:06:40 Lemeteki had little competition for the win in 1:03:25. 2017 Shibetsu winner  Tsubasa Hayakawa (Toyota) was the top Japanese man at 2nd in 1:03:42, beating MGC Race Olympic marathon trials qualifiers Daichi Kamino (New Balance) and Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) - by 4 seconds and 11 seconds. Other MGC Race qualifiers Masato Imai (Toyota Jidoshokki), Yuji Iwata (MHPS) and Ryo Kiname (MHPS) all struggled, none of them breaking 66 minutes. Aoki won the women's race easily in 1:15:12 by almost a minute over Mai Nagaoka (Sysmex). MGC Race qualifiers Reia Iwade (Under Armour) and Keiko Nogami (Juhachi Ginko) were listed to start but apparently did not run. 33rd S...

The Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon is known for its winds, but at today's 68th running they held off until almost the end of the race, setting the stage for Beppu-Oita's deepest-ever field to go hard from the start. A lead pack of around 40 hit 5 km in 15:00, 2:06:36 pace, backing off a bit from there but staying on high-2:07 to low-2:08 pace until the final pacer stepped off at 30 km. As in Osaka last week and Marugame earlier today, one of the favorites fell early in the race and had to drop out, in this case 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku), already qualified for the 2020 Olympic trials but in great shape and going for a fast time. Okamoto broke his left elbow in the fall, which will reportedly take two months to completely heal. Qualification for the trials event, September's MGC Race, weighed heavily on the minds of the Japanese men, dozens of whom stayed with the pace as long as they could. A short way back 2:16-level American Andrew...

by Brett Larner His career marked by more ups and downs than virtually any other elite marathoner, London Olympian Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) pulled yet another surprise comeback out of nowhere on a week's notice to win the hot and humid Hokkaido Marathon in Sapporo on Sunday.  One of only five Japanese men to ever win a marathon outside Japan under 2:10, after a mid-race surge Fujiwara's strategy evoked his course record-setting 2010 Ottawa Marathon win , waiting until the final km before going for a long surge over a group of five including his training partner and 2010 Hokkaido winner Cyrus Njui (Kenya/Arata Project), 2015 Nagano Marathon runner-up Tomohiro Tanigawa (Team Konica Minolta) and others.  Fujiwara crossed the finish line to claim his second career marathon victory in 2:16:49, one of the slower winning times in recent Hokkaido history but a full 11 seconds over Njui in the final kilometer. Njui held off Tanigawa, who previously felt the sting of Fujiwa...

by Brett Larner Taking on increased importance as the Japanese Federation focuses on hot weather racing in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics men's and women's marathons, the Hokkaido Marathon featured one of its deepest men's fields in memory.  The women's field was smaller but featured at least three good up-and-coming talents.  Getting the better of them all in the mid-20s temperatures was former pro-XC skier and mountain running champion Azusa Nojiri (Hiratsuka Lease), a 2:24:57 marathoner while at the Sachiko Yamashita -coached Daiichi Seimei corporate team but mostly unsuccessful since leaving to follow an Arata Fujiwara -inspired route of independent sponsorship.  In Hokkaido Nojiri easily dropped the rest of the field to win in 2:30:26, a quality mark in a typically hot race that rarely sees sub-2:30 winning times.  Debuting runner-up Shoko Mori (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) was nearly five minutes back in 2:35:10, just beating pre-race favorite Yuka Yano (C...