japan running news

by Brett Larner A year after ending its 24-year streak of National University Men's Ekiden Championships appearances,  Yamanashi Gakuin University  returned to the fold with a win at the Championships' Kanto Region Qualifer June 30 at Tokyo's National Stadium.  A meet consisting of four 10000 m heats each with two men from each of the twenty entered universities, team scores are calculated by the combined times of all eight of a school's entered runners.  The five teams with the fastest cumulative time go on to November's National Championships. Nittai University  held a 17-second lead over Yamanashi Gakuin coming into the fourth and fastest heat, where Yamanashi Gakuin's new Kenyan recruit  Enock Omwamba  led start to finish to take the individual win in 28:39.13 and, together with his teammate  Hiroto Inoue 's 29:01.28 PB, give Yamanashi Gakuin a 15-second win over Nittai in the final scoring.  Omwamba was accompanied for a large part...

By Brett Larner The  2012 Sapporo International Half Marathon  will take place this Sunday, July 1.  The 1:30 p.m. start time in recent years has meant slower times, but Sapporo remains Japan's deepest summer road race and always delivers.  Nihon TV will broadcast the race live, and international viewers should be able to pick up the broadcast via Keyhole TV .  JRN will do additional live race coverage as usual via Twitter @JRNLive . At the top of the men's field is Kenyan great Martin Mathathi  (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), who set a searing course record of 58.56 on the aided Great North Run course last fall.  Sapporo will be Mathathi's next step along a course to a planned marathon debut at this December's Fukuoka International Marathon.  Alongside him are 2011 Fukuoka winner Josphat Ndambiri (Kenya/Team Komori Corp.), national record holder Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku), and London Olympic marathoners Arata Fujiwara  (Miki House) an...

by Brett Larner Kenyan first-year Charles Ndungu  (Sapporo Yamanote H.S.), the first-ever Kenyan at a high school on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, continued his rapid improvement since arriving in Japan this spring, running 13:35.54 in the June 27  Hokuren Distance Challenge Fukagawa Meet 5000 m A-heat, a PB by over 20 seconds, to finish just behind past Kenyan national XC champion Gideon Ngatuny  (Team Nissin Shokuhin).  A month ago Ndungu's coach Kazuki Kajiyama   promised him an MP3 player for breaking 14 for the first time .  What will he get now?  Ndungu's remarkable run catapults him to the top level of the Japan-based Kenyan high school contingent and makes him a solid contender for the win at next month's National High School Track and Field Championships. University-level competition was thick, with Hakone Ekiden powerhouses Toyo University , Komazawa University  and Waseda University  all recording multiple sub-...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120627-973978.html translated and edited by Brett Larner On June 27 the management company of Hokkaido Marathon course record holder Kiyoko Shimahara , 35, who retired following January's Osaka International Women's Marathon, announced that she is expecting her first child.  The baby is due in December, following which Shimahara hopes to make a return to competition.  Shimahara is married to 2008 Hokkaido Marathon winner Masaru Takamizawa , the head coach at Nagano's famed Saku Chosei High School.

by Brett Larner Japan's premier ultramarathon, the Lake Saroma 100 km and 50 km , saw its 27th running on Sunday, June 24. The 100 km was largely a battle of familiar faces on both the men's and women's sides, as national team stalwart and 2011 4th-placer Yoshikazu Hara moved up to take the win over last year's runner-up Hideo Nojo in 6:33:32.  Nojo improved on last year's mark but was still over two minutes behind Hara, running 6:35:52. In the women's race defending champion Naomi Ochiai was only 4th in 7:56:42, but 2011 runner-up   Shiho Katayama took over 20 minutes off her time from last year to win in a world-leading 7:33:38.  Last year's 50 km division winner and former corporate marathoner Yuka Ezaki made a good transition to the 100 km distance, finishing 5th in 8:04:02. The most surprising action came in the 50 km, where 25-year-old  Chiyuki Mochizuki (Canon AC Kyushu), the two-time Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon women's division winn...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120620-970454.html translated by Mika Tokairin and Brett Larner At a special meeting of the Tokyo Marathon Foundation last week at Tokyo City Hall, complexities arose which prevented the selection of a new chairperson alongside the election of other board members.  The Foundation, which came into existence in 2010, has been headed by Japanese Federation advisor  Hiroaki Chosa  in a position with a term of two years. The Federation and Tokyo Metropolitan Government each recommended nine different candidates to succeed Chosa in his position, all of whom were rejected by the selection committee.  The twenty-one Foundation board members who were not among those nominated for the chairperson's position did succeed in determining the new temporary vice-chairperson. It appears that this exceptional perplexity was the result of a power struggle within the Foundation between the Federation and the Tokyo Met...

by Brett Larner Somewhat usually, all of Japan's major track action this weekend took place on Saturday.  The biggest meet of the day was the first in the Hokuren Distance Challenge series, held in Shibetsu, Hokkaido.  London Olympics men's marathon team member Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) made news by running both the A and B heats of the men's 10000 m with less than six minutes in between.  Fujiwara won the B-heat in 29:08.00, then ran 29:00.98 in the A-heat where he placed 5th.  With new half marathon and marathon PBs of 1:01:34 and 2:07:48 behind him earlier this year, Fujiwara's three-year-old 10000 m PB of 28:41.05 is no doubt up for renewal whenever he wants it.  Fujiwara will run next weekend's Sapporo International Half Marathon as another tuneup for the London Olympics. Kenyan Alex Mwangi  (Team YKK) won the 10000 m A-heat in 28:12.47 over 2011 World Championships marathoner Yoshinori Oda  (Team Toyota), who took the runner-up position ...

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2012/06/23/kiji/K20120623003526230.html translated by Brett Larner The three members of the London Olympics women's marathon team, Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya), Ryoko Kizaki  (Team Daihatsu) and Yoshimi Ozaki  (Team Daiichi Seimei) held a joint workout open to the media at 2100 m altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona on June 22.  "We ran with a healthy feeling of tension," said Shigetomo, her satisfaction with the workout evident. On this day the women ran 30 km on a one-way 5 km loop around a lake, covering the distance in around two hours.  Her corporate team regularly using Flagstaff as an altitude training base, Kizaki commented, "With three of us here we can really focus well," giving a favorable evaluation of the joint Olympic training camp's worth.  Ozaki said, "I hope we all target the top positions [at the Olympics] ." All three women's marathon Olympians will be making their Olympic debuts, an...