japan running news

At Sunday's National High School Ekiden  in Kyoto, Hiroshima's Sera H.S.  boys will be aiming for their tenth victory in fifty appearances. In their last win five years ago, the Sera boys set the current course record of 2:01:18 for 42.195 km in seven stages. With a 5000 m average time that makes it the fastest Sera team in history, can Sera mark its 50th National High School Ekiden with a milestone achievement? 3rd-year captain Konosuke Shintani and 2nd-years Cosmas Mwangi , Shota Morishita and Shota Shiode have all broken 14 minutes for 5000 m, the benchmark for a top national-level high school time . The average 5000 m PB of its seven fastest runners, 14:01.64, is the best in its fifty appearances to date. "The entire team has raised its level," commented head coach Shoji Shintaku . "There is no weak link. All they need is strength to go with their speed." But Sera's main rivals are just as strong. Defending champion Sendai Ikuei H.S.  of Miyagi r...

On Dec. 15 the management of the Juhachi Shinwa Ginko women's corporate team announced that 2018 Asian Games marathon silver medalist Keiko Nogami , 35, will retire next month. Her final race will be the Jan. 24 Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden . After retiring she plans to return to her family home in Hyogo. Her plans beyond that have not yet been settled. Nogami struggled with injuries ever since her time at Hyogo's Suma Gakuen H.S. Suma Gakuen won the National High School Ekiden her senior year, but she was only an alternate and did not run. After graduating she joined the Sanix corporate team, which disbanded a short time later. She ran her debut marathon at age 29, set her PBs of 15:24.70 for 5000 m, 32:07.70 for 10000 m and 2:26:33 for the marathon in 2018 at age 32, and her half marathon PB of 1:09:27 in 2019 at age 33. Nogami had an injury to her left shin about three months before the MGC Race Olympic marathon trials in September, 2019. Although she fell be...

On Dec. 15, Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura  (28, Fujitsu) sat for an online interview from his training base in Tokunoshima, Kagoshima, revealing that he plans to run the Feb. 28 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon. Reporting that his training has been progressing steadily, Nakamura enthusiastically said, "The goal is to win in Lake Biwa to build up some momentum for the Olympics. Time is important too, but the main goal is to win."  Lake Biwa will be a year and a half since Nakamura's last marathon, the Sept., 2019 MGC Race Olympic trials. Since his victory there everything about the Olympic marathon has changed, with the venue forcibly relocated to Sapporo and the Olympics themselves postponed for a year. But through it all he has remained true to his path without wavering.  Nakamura ran his debut marathon at Lake Biwa in 2018, and it is no accident that he is returning there for his final marathon before the Olympics. "I was the top Japanese finisher in 20...

Two of Japan's best collegiate athletes broke stage records at Sunday's Tokai Region University Ekiden , a regional championship race for universities in the greater Nagoya area.  In the women's race, eight teams competed over five stages totaling 26.6 km. Four-time national champion Meijo University  tuned up for the year-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden with a win in Tokai, leading start to finish and taking four out of five stage stage bests to close out with a lead of three and a half minutes over Chukyo Gakuin University . Meijo fourth-year Rika Kaseda , the top collegiate 10000 m runner of 2020 with a PB of 31:39.86 at last weekend's National Championships , took a second off the record for the 5.9 km Third Stage, winning it in 18:10. Chukyo Gakuin first-year Yumeka Inaba  was the only runner to break up Meijo's domination, beating Meijo fourth-year Sena Komori  by 11 seconds to win the 4.7 km Fourth Stage in 17:02. Meijo's final time of 1:28:25 was ov...

The race committee for the Tokyo Oympics marathon and race walking events met last week in Sapporo. The courses for both events are undergoing fine-tuning to be officially certified by World Athletics. The planned test event for the marathon was also officially set for May 5 under the name Hokkaido Sapporo Marathon Festival 2021. There have been no major changes to the courses as measured in October. The marathon course will start at Odori Park and cover a roughly 20 km loop through the city of Sapporo before repeating two circuits of the loop's northern half, the only minor adjustment being a 46.67 m shift of the starting line.  Some of the turnaround points on the race walking course have had their radius increased from 4 m to 8 m, making for broader turns. With regard to the marathon test race, plans call for it to consist of an elite half marathon with 80 men and 80 women, as well as a mass-participation 10 km with a field of 2,500. As the half marathon covers almost the entir...

Originally, scheduled for Dec. 6 before being rescheduled to Feb. 28, then cut back to a 25 km race, the Shonan International Marathon has announced that it has been forced to cancel the event in the face of rising coronavirus numbers throughout Japan. One of Japan's largest marathons with 16,821 finishers in its last edition, Shonan is also one of the few large races put on by a private company instead of a local government. Along with rescheduling and cutting back in distance, they had planned to implement other coronavirus countermeasures like eliminating water tables and drastically small wave starts over a long period of time, but in their announcement of the event's final cancelation the organizers cited the currently increasing numbers of infected in Japan's ongoing third wave and the fact that the situation is worse than it had been on Aug. 28.  Despite the disappointing news, organizers voiced optimism that the countermeasures they had developed would be of use t...

After consultation with all parties involved, the organizing committee of the 10th anniversary Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon scheduled for Apr. 25, 2021 has made the decision to go ahead with next year's race while taking appropriate precautions against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. As one of the measures to allow the race to be safely staged, the field size on race day will be cut to 70% of its usual level, 7,000 runners, to reduce crowd density on the course. The remaining 30%, 3,000 runners, will be given entry to an online half marathon to allow them to still participate. Priority will be given to people who were entered in the canceled 2020 edition. The 3 km race will be canceled in order to further reduce numbers, and all entrants in that division will have their entry fees refunded. We thank you for your understanding. source article: http://www.gifu-marathon.jp/news/news_033.html translated and edited by Brett Larner

As we saw with multiple national records at last Friday's long distance National Championships , the Japanese distance world keeps getting faster and faster. High school athletes are no exception. Breaking 14 minutes for 5000 m is the gold standard for a top-level high school runner. This season 22 boys have done it not including foreign student athletes, almost double the previous record for a single season, 12 in 2010. In 2010, Kenta Murayama , now part of the Asahi Kasei corporate team but then running for Miyagi's Meisei H.S., was the fastest high schooler at 13:49.45. Future Tokyo Olympics marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura ran 13:50.38 that year while at Iga Hakuho H.S. Since then the number of boys under 14 minutes has held steady, with 10 in 2015, 10 in 2016 and 11 in 2019, showing how exceptional this season's number is. Leading this new generation is Tokyo Nogyo Daini H.S. 3rd-year Kosuke Ishida . While at Fukuoka's Asakawa J.H.S. Ishida ran 3:49.72 for 1...