japan running news

by Brett Larner video by akuy125 Domestic Japanese action this weekend focused on the annual National Sports Festival and on three competitive half marathons.  Women's 5000 m Japanese year leader Misaki Onishi  (Team Sekisui Kagaku) started the weekend off with a win in 15:43.03 in a close pack race at the National Sports Festival 5000 m.  2013 World University Games 10000 m gold medalist Ayuko Suzuki  (Nagoya Univ.) was next across the line in 15:46.30, with 3rd through 9th all finishing within less than two seconds of her.  Kenyan Charles Ndungu (Sapporo Yamanote H.S.) had an easier time in the junior men's 5000 m, winning by nearly 20 seconds in 13:56.27 over  Suguru Hirosue (Kobayashi H.S.). Course record holder Mekubo Mogusu  (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin) enjoyed an even greater level of domination in winning his third Ichinoseki International Half Marathon , improving on his time last year in clocking 1:02:11.  Runner-up Yuta Koyama ...

by Brett Larner photo by Adrian Miles Lining up for his sixth marathon of the year after a late Friday night flight, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) turned in his second win in three weeks as he set a 2:11:52 course record to lead a Japanese sweep at the Sept. 16 Sydney Marathon. Just three weeks after winning the hot and humid Hokkaido Marathon in 2:18:38 , Kawauchi set off in a small lead pack on pace to break the 2:14:12 Sydney course record set back in 1994.  Splitting 1:06:08 for the first half, he soon dropped Kenyan Felix Kandie  and was on his own as he pushed on to run a negative split despite the challenging nature of the Sydney course which some estimates put at two to three minutes slow .  Kawauchi crossed the line with a margin of more than four minutes over Kandie, his time of 2:11:52 taking nearly two and a half minutes off the course record and the third-best time of his career.  Next up Kawauchi will run October's World Half Marathon Championsh...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120415-934528.html translated and edited by Brett Larner The Kawauchis lead in Kasumigaura. Having missed out on the London Olympics team, Yuki Kawauchi  (25, Saitama Pref.) marked the first win among his twelve marathon starts to date at the Apr. 15 Kasumigaura Marathon , Japan's third-largest marathon returning after post-disaster cancellation last year. Kawauchi ran as a pacer for his younger brother Koki Kawauchi  (19, Takasaki Keizai Univ.), but after 23 km he left his brother behind and ran on his own to the finish, closing with an impressive 6:09 split for the final 2.195 km.  Because the brothers went into the race planning to run around 2:25, even with this closing speed Kawauchi's winning time of 2:22:38 was a personal worst, but his wide margin of victory over 2nd place still showed that he was in a different class from the other runners. "I didn't plan to win today, so I guess I was jus...