japan running news

Rio 10000 m Olympian Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) made a good debut Sunday at the Paris Marathon , finishing 8th in 2:26:13. Takashima started fast, on sub-2:21 pace until just before 30 km before fading. Her time was the 4th-fastest this year by a Japanese woman and best so far this season outside Japan, and it put her well within reach of the two-race sub-2:28:00 average route to qualifying for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials marathon. Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) was 11th in 2:38:15 and Kanae Shimoyama (Noritz) 16th in 2:45:34. Yoshiki Koizumi (Raffine) was the top Japanese man at 24th in 2:20:29. Things went less smoothly at the Rotterdam Marathon . Running her third marathon in less than four months in a desperate attempt to get her MGC Race qualifying time this season, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon course record holder  Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) went through halfway on schedule in 1:13:22 before starting to slow, ultimately finishing in 2:47:25 for 15th. On the men's side Yuki Yagi (Y...

It's a busy weekend on and off the roads at home and abroad. Led by 2018 Hakone Ekiden First Stage winner Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyo Univ.) and 2017 World University Games women's half marathon gold medalist Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.), Japan is fielding quality men's and women's teams for Saturday's World University Cross Country Championships in St. Gallen, Switzerland. At home, the first big track meet of the season takes place Saturday in Kumamoto at the Kanaguri Memorial Meet where the main focus will be on 5000 m. Livestream to be had here . 3000 m will be the main order of the day at the year's first Setagaya Time Trials meet in Tokyo, while top members of Waseda University and other Hakone teams will square off at the Tokyo Six-University Meet at Keio University . Sunday the emphasis shifts to the roads, with yet more Hakone talent racing the Yaizu Minato Half Marathon thanks to its unique "pair marathon" team scoring. Overseas...

18th Incheon International Half Marathon Incheon, South Korea, 3/25/18 click here for complete results Men 1.Reuben Narry (Kenya) 2. Jean Marie Vianney Uwajene (Rwanda) 3. Paul Kipkemoi Kipkorir (Kenya) ----- 12. Hiroki Nagayama (Japan/Waseda Univ.) - 1:06:08 13th Warsaw Half Marathon Warsaw, Poland, 3/25/18 click here for complete results Men 1. Ezrah Kiprotich Sang (Kenya) - 1:01:37 2. Mekashaw Kassa (Ethiopia) - 1:01:52 3. Hillary Kiptum Maiyo (Kenya) - 1:02:18 ----- 8. Yuki Yagi (Japan) - 1:05:03 © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

by Brett Larner Japanese runners turned up at three international races over the weekend.  Every year top-placing finishers at November's Ohtawara Marathon get send to the Paris Marathon.  Having turned down the 2016 trip after the Paris terror attacks, two-time Ohtawara women's winner Hiroko Yoshitomi went this time, taking 9th in 2:38:46 in her fifth marathon of 2017.  Men's winner Takahiro Gunji went under 2:20 for the first time, 21st in a PB 2:19:01 just behind Kansuke Morihashi , who took 20th in 2:18:22. At the Hannover Marathon, Hideyuki Ikegami , a young independent who has received support from London Olympian Arata Fujiwara in recent years, made his marathon debut.  A 1:03:09 half marathoner, Ikegami came into Hannover with a 1:31:53 win at the Osaka 30 km in December and altitude training in Kenya with Fujiwara after that behind him, but despite starting out at an ambitious 2:10 pace Ikegami slowed progressively.  Between 25 and 30 km he ran i...

by Brett Larner photos by Ekiden News , Reiko.K and STITCHrunner click here for more photos by Ekiden News For the third year in a row, the staff of the Ekiden News website brought the experience of the elite time trial meet to the average runner, putting on the Otona no Time Trial meet, Time Trials for Grown-Ups, at Kinuta Park Field in Tokyo's western-central suburb of Setagaya on July 26.  Despite extreme heat over 500 amateur runners from back-of-the-packers to sub-15 seekers, kids to adults, took part in 1000 m, 1500 m and finely-graded 5000 m races, mirroring the experience of elite time trial meets like the Nittai University Time Trials and Golden Games in Nobeoka.  London Paralympics 5000 m bronze medalist Shinya Wada Each heat featured pacing from top-tier Japanese elite athletes, including sub-62 half marathoners Takuya Fukatsu , Tomoya Onishi and Yuki Yagi from the Asahi Kasei corporate team, London Paralympics men's 5000 m bronze medalist Shin...

by Brett Larner click here for Japanese women's 2014 rankings There was a lot to like in Japanese men's distance running this year, from national records for 3000 m and 50 km and a sensational Hakone Ekiden win to six men sub-28 to a dozen sub-14 high schoolers to university men breaking 61 minutes in the half marathon to ten men running sub-2:10 marathons a total of eleven times.  Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) continued to define his own category , setting a Japanese record with his seventh and eighth career sub-2:10 marathons on the way to totalling thirteen marathons for the year, going sub-2:20 in all of them to break Doug Kurtis ' record of twelve.  All of it happening with record-setting depth at all levels, a reflection of how much motivation the 2020 Tokyo Olympics bring to the country's runners. In preparation for Tokyo the Japanese Federation began a move to close ranks by establishing a National Team training program for its top Olympic marath...

by Brett Larner Races in Australia, the U.S.A. and the Netherlands on Sunday featured Japanese corporate league athletes.  At the Sydney Marathon, both the men's and women's races saw the top two broke the existing records for a challenging course full of hills and turns.  In the men's race, Ethiopia's Gebo Gameda shook free of compatriot Seboka Dibaba Tola to break Yuki Kawauchi 's 2:11:52 course record, Gameda getting the new record in 2:11:18 with Tola just squeezing under Kawauchi's time in 2:11:48.  Kenyan Benjamin Koloum Kiptoo likewise shook off track and half marathon star Tsuyoshi Ugachi of two-time New Year Ekiden national champion team Konica Minolta for 3rd in 2:12:08.  Ugachi ran a PB of around a minute for 4th in 2:12:18, a decent time given the course and one that puts him 22nd among Japanese men for the year.  It is widely thought in Japan that Ugachi's dynamic and aggressive form will make it hard for him to find the marathon succes...

by Brett Larner photo by a_yamako videos by Ekiden News Perfect conditions brought fast times at one of the best distance meets on the Japanese spring calendar, Saturday's Golden Games in Nobeoka.  With a focus on 5000 m, almost every heat saw four out of the top five run PBs.  Kenya Pauline Kamulu  (Team Toto) soloed her way to a one-second best of 15:29.55 in the women's 5000 m A-heat, with runner-up  Miho Shimizu  (Team Hokuren) in 15:36.03 leading three Japanese women to PBs under 15:40. Newcomers Bernard Kimani  (Team Yakult) and James Mwangi  (Team NTN) continued their climb up the ranks of the Japan-based Africans, beating World XC junior silver medalist Leonard Barsoton  (Team Nissin Shokuhin) in PBs of 13:14.64 and 13:16.06 with Barsoton 3rd in 13:21.44 in the men's 5000 m C-heat.  The lone Japanese man in the heat, 2014 World Half Marathon team member Masato Kikuchi  (Team Konica Minolta), ran 13:35.18 for 6th, yet anot...

by Brett Larner videos by Ekiden News and tuyoshi55244 Japan's outdoor track season got underway on Saturday with the rainy 23rd edition of Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet.  Teammates  James Mwangi  and Edward Waweru  of the NTN corporate team got the season off to a good start with a 1-2 finish in Heat 4 of the men's 5000 m, Mwangi leading the way with a 13:25.56 a full ten seconds ahead of Waweru.  Japan-based Kenyans and Ethiopians took 11 of the top 13 places, with the only Japanese runners to get into the middle of things both running PBs to get there.  Second-year Keisuke Nakatani  of three-time defending National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University  ran a sizable best of 13:48.99 for 8th, a time that ranks him 2nd on the Komazawa squad behind only World Half Marathon Championships team member Kenta Murayama .  Sub-28 and sub-1:02 as a collegiate, Yuta Shitara  made a good debut in the Honda uniform by knocking...

http://www.iwanichi.co.jp/ichinoseki/item_25911.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Its course record wins at all three major university men's ekidens in the 2010-2011 season making it the best university team ever assembled, Waseda University 's ekiden squad has arrived in Ichinoseki, Iwate to begin training for the first key battle in this year's campaign, October's Izumo Ekiden.  On Sept. 19th the team held a public reception at its training facilities in the city's Hanaizumi district to greet and offer support to local residents affected by March's disasters.  With the entry list for this year's Izumo Ekiden announced the same day, the reception also served to mark the beginning of serious training for the team's core group of athletes. Waseda's ekiden team originally began using Hanaizumi as a training base in 1990 and has continued with only one interruption.  Team alumnus Yasuyuki Watanabe  (38), now Waseda's head coach, exper...

by Brett Larner The bulk of the regional university championship track meets took place the weekend of May 14-15, including Tokyo's highly competitive Kanto Regional University T&F Championships. The most noteworthy result of the weekend, however, came at the small Chugoku-Shikoku Regionals, where first-year Aya Takayanagi (Matsuyama Univ.) set a new national junior and national collegiate record in the women's 3000 mSC. Takayanagi, coached by Keiichi Murai , the husband of two-time World Championships marathon medalist Reiko Tosa , ran 10:21.41 to set the pair of new marks, and excellent start to her university career. The Kanto region is the site of the toughest men's racing in Japan, and the 10000 m is always the highlight of the meet. This year did not disappoint as junior Tsubasa Hayakawa (Tokai Univ.) overcame strong winds to beat defending champion Benjamin Gandu (Kenya/Nihon Univ.) for the win in a PB of 28:41.26 in the Div. 1 race. Hayakawa ran a patient...

by Brett Larner The 2011 Nittai University Time Trials series gets underway next weekend in Yokohama. A tuneup event for other track meets on Japan's spring calendar, the 214th edition of Nittai sees the return to action of Japan's current #1 marathoner, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama T&F Assoc.). The amateur who made worldwide news with a moving 2:08:37 3rd-place finish at February's Tokyo Marathon, Kawauchi comes to Nittai fresh from having been named to Japan's 2011 World Championships marathon team as its #1 man. Entered in both Saturday's 10000 m A-heat and Sunday's 5000 m A-heat it's unlikely he will run both, but whichever distance he chooses it is safe to say that everyone will be watching Kawauchi. This early in the season most distance men are focusing on 5000 m, and as a result the 5000 m A-heat features a larger number of noteworthy names. Among them are Japan's top man at last month's World XC Championships, Hirotaka Tamura (Nihon Univ...

by Brett Larner #316 Tatsuro Okazaki leads half marathon Asian jr. area record holder Suguru Osako, #315, in the 1500 m on Apr. 2 at Tokyo's National Stadium. Click here for more pictures courtesy of WESC. Even as road races continue to be cancelled in the wake of last month's earthquake and tsunami, track season got underway this weekend with a handful of competitive meets across the country. Among highlights of the distance events: At the Mar. 30 Kokushikan University Time Trials in Tama, Tokyo, women's 10000 m junior national record holder Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno) returned from a long layoff due to injury to run 15:46.58 , the lone woman in a men's 5000 m. 2011 Hakone Ekiden winners Waseda University dominated the distance events at the Tokyo Six University Meet at the National Stadium on Apr. 2. Seniors Yo Yazawa and Yuki Yagi went 1-2 in the 5000 m, clocking 14:03.04 and 14:15.73. Sophomores Kohei Kudo and Noriki Tazawa likewise went 1-2 in the 300...