by Brett Larner National championship ekiden season may be through, but across the country smaller regional and local ekidens continue. Biggest among the dozen or so noteworthy ekidens this weekend was the 77th running of the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden . A moderate-length event at 7 stages and 84.4 km, Chugoku Yamaguchi featured six top corporate league teams from the central Japan region along with local universities and clubs. Despite a one-two punch of 2012 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Joseph Gitau (Kenya) and former Sera H.S. star Charles Ndirangu (Kenya) the JFE Steel team could not hold off rivals Mazda , the lead turning over twice during the course of the race before Mazda anchor Kenji Yamamoto , a member of Toyo University 's 2012 Hakone Ekiden course record-setting team, ran down JFE Steel's Yuki Moriwaki to give Mazda the win by 20 seconds in 4:08:54. Chugoku Denryoku , the top-ranked team in the region after finishi...
the world's window into elite japanese distance running, since 2007