japan running news

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20081013-00000016-nks_fl-spo http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/flash/KFullFlash20081013059.html translated and edited by Brett Larner 19 year old Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno) staged a stunning comeback at the Oct. 13 Niigata Big Festa Track and Field Meet , running 31:23.21 in the 10000 m to break her own national record by over 12 seconds and beating former junior national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (26, Team Wacoal) in a one-on-one match race with male pacemakers. Fukushi finished just behind Kinukawa in 31:24.82. Kinukawa's mark easily breaks the A qualifying standard of 31:45.00 for next summer's Berlin World Championships. Kinukawa was a national sensation in high school, her achievements as a student including competing in the 10000 m at the 2007 Osaka World Championships and setting her previous junior national record of 31:35.27, but late last year she contracted an unidentified virus which over the course of many months caused a seri...

by Brett Larner The warm conditions and slow early pace at the 2008 Chicago Marathon played straight to the strengths of Second Wind AC's Kiyoko Shimahara, who tied former national record holder Yoko Shibui's 3rd place finish for the best mark ever set by a Japanese woman in Chicago. The extremely slow first half dashed Shimahara's hopes of a PB performance, but she lived up to her reputation as a strong heat runner and powerful finisher by dropping a chase pack which included Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist Constantina Tomescu-Dita (Romania) and two-time defending champion Berhane Adere (Ethiopia) and overtaking breakaway pack member Bezunesh Bekele (Ethiopia) to take 3rd in 2:30:19. In a post-race interview Shimahara commented, We started slow, so I gave up on running a PB pretty early on and decided to just go for a good race. I came to Chicago with a lot of confidence and the weather was good [ laughing ], so even though I couldn't meet my time goal I wanted...

by Brett Larner Team Toyota Boshoku's rookie Yusei Nakao had the strongest Japanese performance at the Rio World Half Marathon Championships on Oct. 12, finishing 5th in the men's race in 1:02:05, while the Japanese women came up with another bronze medal-winning team performance led by the 10th place finish of Team Hokuren's Yukiko Akaba. In the men's race, Masato Kihara (Chuo Gakuin University) led the way as the sole non-African in the lead pack of thirteen at the 5 km point, crossing the mark in 14:07. Although he has run faster than this before in a half marathon, Kihara soon ran into trouble and began to move backward, eventually finishing 83rd of 86 finishers in a shocking 1:20:05. Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN), Kazuo Ietani (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) and Tetsuo Nishimura (Team YKK) set out at a more conservative pace and finished accordingly. Nakao, who ran a massive PB of 1:02:00 in May's Sendai International Half Marathon, ran the early stages of the race in...

Japan Running News will be on holiday Oct. 10-13 as I will be at an altitude training camp in Nagano Prefecture.

by Brett Larner photos courtesy of Chuo Gakuin University "Kihara, I'm sorry, I had never heard your name before. I'll always remember it after this. That was incredible." --Legendary marathoner Toshihiko Seko to Chuo Gakuin University first-year student Masato Kihara after Kihara's victory on the 1st stage of the 2006 Hakone Ekiden. A lot can change in a couple of years. On Jan. 2, 2006 Masato Kihara was an unknown freshman at Chuo Gakuin University , a small school which had been lucky to squeeze into the prestigious university championship Hakone Ekiden but was not regarded as even B-class. Not a single runner from Chuo Gakuin had ever won a Hakone stage, one of the basic marks of a running school's authenticity. Kihara was a 19 year old from Hyogo Prefecture, a graduate of Hotoku High School where he had shown only a hint of his potential, his best mark a 14:26 5000 m. The 1st stage of the Hakone Ekiden is usually one of the most interesting, a fertile m...

by Brett Larner photo by Jason Lawrence With the withdrawal of Mizuki Noguchi from the Oct. 12 World Half Marathon Championships in Rio de Janeiro following her pre-Olympic leg injury, the leadership of the Japanese women's contingent in the championships falls on Team Hokuren's Yukiko Akaba. Akaba earned her place on the team by breaking Noguchi's course record in windy conditions at March's National Jitsugyodan (Corporate) Half Marathon Championships with a 1:08:11, a mark which made her the all-time 3rd-fastest Japanese woman over the half marathon distance. It was just one in a string of remarkable performances over the last year since Akaba returned to competitive running after giving birth to a daughter two years ago. An earlier JRN review of Akaba's achievements up to her Jitsugyodan Half Marathon win can be found here . Her Jitsugyodan Half Marathon victory, which she described as disappointing in light of missing a sub-68 minute record, was a key step in Ak...

by Brett Larner photo by http://statuehunter.way-nifty.com/blog/ used with permission Mekubo Mogusu on his way to a course record at the Yosenkai 20 km in Tachikawa, Japan, 10/20/07. The Kenyan men's team for the 2008 World Half Marathon Championships to be held Oct. 12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is undoubtedly the best in the field, with four of its five members sporting sub-hour marks within the last year. Possibly the least well-known, with only one international race to his name, is Mekubo Mogusu. Paradoxically Mogusu also has probably the largest fan base thanks to his status as a publicly-beloved figure in Japan. Who is this man Mogusu? Mekubo Mogusu calls Kenyan Olympic marathon gold medalist and half marathon world record holder Samuel Wanjiru both his biggest rival and his biggest inspiration. Mogusu was born Dec. 25, 1986 in Kiyomitay, Kenya, six weeks after Wanjiru. Like Wanjiru, Mogusu was selected as an 'exchange student' by one of Japan's powerhouse runnin...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/news/f-sp-tp0-20081008-417002.html translated by Brett Larner The nine members of the Japanese national team for the Oct. 12 World Half Marathon Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, left for Brazil from Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Oct. 8. Chuo Gakuin University ace Masato Kihara said he would not be focusing on his Kenyan ekiden rival Mekubo Mogusu (Yamanashi Gakuin University) but rather competing against the world. "I'll fight with Mogusu in Hakone. Rather than worry about him I think it's better to run my own race," said Kihara in anticipation of his first overseas race. Beijing Olympics 5000 m and 10000 m competitor Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) commented, "I plan to follow the leader."