japan running news

Due to be held the same day as voting in the upcoming election for the House of Representatives, runners at the Kanazawa Marathon can expect to be stopped at over 20 intersections on the course in order to allow voters on their way to the polls to pass without interference.  Scheduled to be held Oct. 31 after last year's race was canceled, the Kanazawa Marathon will take place while voting polls for the House of Representatives election are open. On race day, road closures for the marathon will be in place for up to 6 hours, but the locations of 14 polling stations on the course mean that voters will need to be able to cross through intersections. 50,000 voters are expected to use these locations, and while city officials are calling for people to utilize early voting or polling stations not affected by road closures then have made the decision to place security personnel at 21 intersections to stop runners when necessary. The Kanazawa Marathon already has this policy in place at...

With special precaution measures having been lifted within the prefecture of Ishikawa, states of emergency having been lifted nationwide including within the major cities, the number of cases of COVID-19 sharply declining both within and without Ishikawa, and the steady rise in vaccinations, the organizers of the Kanazawa Marathon have committed to staging this year's race with adequate precautions on Oct. 31.  The organizers ask all participants to monitor their physical condition for the 14 days prior to the race and to take steps to reduce the risk of contracting the coronavirus in their day-to-day lives. Participants are also encouraged to get vaccinated wherever possible. The general public is asked not to come watch the race in person and instead to show its support by following TV or radio coverage. Please be aware that in the event of situations such as a rapid increase in the number of infections, earthquakes, floods or typhoons in the time shortly before the race, the e...

interview and translation by Brett Larner photos by Mika Tokairin Kiyoko Shimahara  set the course records at the Hokkaido and Katsuta marathons. A silver medalist at the 2006 Asian Games, she finished 6th at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. After a few years in a rut she returned to form in the fall of 2009 with a PB and two other sub-2:30 runs in just over 100 days. Shimahara talked to JRN before her race at the 2010 Nagano Marathon. You ran at Kokushikan University and joined Shiseido after graduating. What drew you to Shiseido? I was really slow when I was in university, but I knew that I still wanted to run for a corporate team somewhere. I talked to different teams and was a bit lucky with the timing, and Shiseido was the one that offered to pick me up. Did you already know coach Manabu Kawagoe before that? When I was a student? No, not at all. The first year I was at Shiseido it was a different coach. Coach Kawagoe came in during my second year there. ...

Ethiopia is pretty far down the road to overtaking Kenya as the world's leading marathon nation, and its presence is heavy in both the women's and men's fields for the Olympic year 2020 Tokyo Marathon . Lacking London's star power the Tokyo fields won't win many nominations for best of 2020, but with loads of World Marathon Majors top three finishers and winners of next-tier gold label marathons they're still fields at a level most other races would love to be able to pull off. On the women's side, with PBs of 2:18:34 and 2:18:46 defending champ Ruti Aga and past winner Birhane Dibaba lead a main of twelve top-tier invited elites, of which nine were born in Ethiopia. The other three, Valary Jemeli Aiyabei , nationality transfer Lonah Chemtai Salpeter , and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , were all born in Kenya. With Tokyo not counting in last-chance Olympic qualification for Japanese women the top entrant from outside those two countries is Japan's Haru...

Held alongside the Osaka International Women's Marathon , its companion Osaka Half Marathon has grown from a mass-participation mixed gender event to now feature as one of Japan's top post-ekiden season half marathons. Not being a national team selection event for the World Half Marathon Championships it doesn't get many of the big names, who mostly line up a week later in Marugame, but the fields are definitely not bad. On the women's side, last year's winner Reia Iwade (Under Armour), the fastest female Japanese marathoner of 2019, is back as the only woman in the race to have broken 70 minutes. But she has serious competition from Yuka Hori (Panasonic), only 1:11:05 at the 2018 National Corporate Half but fresh off a 31:38.63 PB for 10000 m earlier this month. 10000 m collegiate national record holder Hikari Yoshimoto (Daihatsu) should also be one of the bigger threats to Iwade after a brilliant anchor run at last month's National Corporate Women'...

Two of Japan's main year-ending marathons celebrated anniversary runnings this year, with the Saitama International Marathon holding its 5th edition and the Nara Marathon marking ten years. Former half marathon world record holder Peres Jepchirchir (Kenya) dropped the competition at 30 km to win in Saitama. Within the first kilometer an all-African lead group had left top Japanese entrants Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) and Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori), and Nina Savina (Belarus) behind. The lead group quickly rounded down to four, Jepchirchir and Ethiopian trio Fatuma Sado , Belaynesh Oljira and Rahma Tusa . #1-ranked Oljira slipped off early in the second half, and when the pacers stopped at 30 km Jepchirchir had no trouble getting rid of Tusa and Sado. Jepchirchir took 1st in a PB of 2:23:50, with Sado a distant 2nd in 2:26:45. After 35 km Tusa ran into trouble, stopping and stretching out her legs and losing ground first to Oljira, 3rd in 2:27:11, and then Savina, who ran a PB...

The first women's race in the 2020 Sapporo Olympic marathon team Final Challenge, the chance for a Japanese woman to pick up the third spot on the Olympic team by running 2:22:22 or better, in its 5th edition the Saitama International Marathon continues its slide toward oblivion as an elite race. The international field is good, and well-positioned to set it up for a Japanese woman to attack that kind of time with 2:21:53 Ethiopian Belaynesh Oljira and debuting 1:05:06 Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir in the foreground, but Japanese women have almost entirely given it a miss. Only one independent runner, Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) and one semi-corporate leaguer, Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) are on the  entry list, raising the obvious question of why bother? Saitama is popular as a mass-participation race, and it is raised a little higher by the quality of internationals it attracts. But as a national team selection race, it seems like only a matter of time before it loses that status...

Two of Japan's main fall amateur marathons are stepping up their game this year with their best-ever elite fields. Looking to upgrade its IAAF label from bronze to silver, the Nov. 17 Kobe Marathon has an elite field with three women under 2:30 and three men under 2:11 in the last three years. Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) and Betty Jepleting (Kenya) lead the women, with Eliud Barngetuny (Kenya) and Weldu Negash Gebretsadik (Norway) fronting the men. The men's race will almost definitely see an international winner, with veteran Chiharu Takada (JR Higashi Nihon) the top Japanese man at 2:11:25 on the Gold Coast two years ago, but the women's race has a good chance of seeing a Japanese winner. Along with Yoshida, it has sub-2:30 woman Yurie Doi (Tos Planning) and amateur duo Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) and Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto), both with low-2:33 PBs earlier this fall and keen to join the sub-2:30 club. With a field of 30,000 the Osaka Marathon is one of...

Just over three weeks out from the race the Hokkaido Marathon organizers have released the elite field for this year's edition. Scheduled for Aug. 25, Hokkaido was in a tough position this year, just three weeks out from the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials and a few more from the Doha World Championships. Only three women answered the call, but despite the two higher priority races just around the corner the men's field is decent quality. On the women's side, 38-year-old Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL), a past Hokkaido winner, is the top seed with a 2:28:24 best in Nagoya two years ago. Alongside her are relative newcomers Chika Ihara (Higo Ginko) and Mirai Waku (Univ. Ent.) both with times in the low-2:30 range earlier this year. On the men's side, Japan-based Kenyan Michael Githae (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) leads the way with a 2:09:21 for 4th at Lake Biwa last year. Top-ranked Japanese man Shogo Kanezane (Chugoku Denryoku) was one of the people who came closest...

Starting in front of Fujiyoshida City Hall in Yamanashi prefecture, the 72nd Fuji Mountain Race took place July 26 with 4043 people entered in its summit and Fifth Stage divisions. Due to bad weather at Mt. Fuji's peak the summit division was cut off at the Fifth Stage, covering the same 15 km course with 1480 m elevation gain as the Fifth Stage division. Yuki Yamada (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) won the summit division race for the first time in 1:17:26, two-time women's champion Yuri Yoshizumi (Medifoam) making it three in a row in 1:37:23. Takuya Saito (Nichizei Business) and Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) topped the men's and women's Fifth Stage division races, Saito winning for the first time in 1:22:10 and Yoshida running 1:37:10 to win for the second year. The winner of the men's Fifth Stage race last year, Yamada was set to take on the summit race for the first time this year. Disappointed at having to settle with a win over a course cut off at the Fifth Stage, h...

One of Japan's longest-standing course records at its elite races fell Sunday as Kenyan Ezekiel Cheboitibin (Sunbelx) beat the great Toshihiko Seko 's 38-year-old Ome 30 km Road Race record by almost 30 seconds. Tough and hilly with a net climb in the first half and descent on the return trip, Ome is a standard spring marathon prep run and a natural partner for April's Boston Marathon, with which it has a longstanding athlete exchange program. The 2017 Ome winner, this time out Cheboitibin was gunning for Seko's record from the start, hitting the mostly uphill 10 km completely solo in 29:47, 20 km midway through the return trip in 59:30, and saving his fastest 10 km split for the end as he crossed the finish line in 1:29:06. Seko's 1:29:32 just two months before his first Boston win had made him the only man in Ome history to break 90 minutes. With the best performance of his career Cheboitibin turned the page on that history. With the withdrawal of Fukuok...

Every year it seems like the question is how much further can Ageo go? The answer still seems to be more. More further. The Ageo City Half Marathon is the world's greatest half marathon, the place where Hakone Ekiden-bound universities line up most of their rosters to help coaches whittle down the contenders for the final sixteen-man Hakone lineup. Perfect conditions at this year's race meant something special. Four runners from Chuo Gakuin University led by Takumi Yokokawa took it out hard, splitting 5:47 at 2 km, 1:01:00 pace, well ahead of last year's CR with the entire field in tow. A field that included national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda), Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), Hakone uphill hero Daichi Kamino (New Balance), 2017 London World Championships marathoner David Nilsson (Sweden), Kenyans Michael Githae (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), Vincent Laimoi (Kokushikan Univ.) and Paul Gitonga (Kokushikan Univ.) and Ethiopian Wor...

Just ahead of an approaching typhoon former Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage man  Shun Gorotani and established mountain runner Yuri Yoshizumi both repeated their summit climb wins in Friday's 71st edition of the iconic Fuji Mountain Race . Video: Finish: 五郎谷俊 Shun Gorotani（コモディイイダ）が2:39:28で第70回富士登山競走山頂コースを昨年に続いて連覇。昨年の箱根駅伝5区での快走で知られるトップ選手です。 #富士登山競走 #mtfuji pic.twitter.com/MjxrQxNjlI — Dogsorcaravan (@Dogsorcaravan) July 27, 2018 Already having established himself as one of Japan's premier uphill specialists, Gorotani had a lead of over four minutes by halfway into the run up to the peak of Mt. Fuji. Gorotani covered the 21 km, 3000 m+ elevation gain course in 2:39:28, almost 8 minutes off his winning time last year but 14 minutes ahead of runner-up Miki Ushida . Speaking to Dogsorcaravan post-race Gorotani expressed disappointment with his time, saying he couldn't move his legs at all. "I've still got a long way to go," he said. Video: Finish: 吉住友里...

With just over three weeks to go the Saitama International Marathon has released the elite field for its third running scheduled for Nov. 12, and it's a small one. A problematic event that carries the diminished legacy of the Tokyo International Women's Marathon and Yokohama International Women's Marathon, Saitama occupies a place in the national team selection process that should go to the far superior Tokyo Marathon women's race but remains out in the northwestern suburbs thanks to the sponsor and TV broadcast income it generates for the JAAF. But with a field like this, how much longer will it be able to generate any sponsor interest or income? The move of the National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships from mid-December to late November, just two weeks after Saitama, means that not a single corporate league woman is entered in Saitama's elite field. Not one. The home crowd is represented by 22-year-old Reia Iwade (Dome), who quit the Noritz corpora...

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20170501/ddl/k07/050/032000c translated and edited by Brett Larner 川内優輝選手は昨年に続いてゲスト選手。すれ違うとき物凄いスピードだったけどハーフ1時間ちょい…とかスンゴイ。目の前でみても良い人でカッコいいし^^。 pic.twitter.com/dVJhyD0jHp — okarinman あやこ (@okarinman) April 30, 2017 The second running of the Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon took place April 30 in the village of Kawauchi, Fukushima. 1500 runners from across the country traversed the roads through mountains in full spring bloom and enjoyed the villagers' hospitality. The event had its beginnings in a local elementary school student saying, "I want to do something to convey the goodness of our village to the outside world." 1200 people took part in its first running last year. As a result of the huge response to its success, 300 locals joined the village cheering section this year. The welcome runners receive from every member of the local community is unique to the village of Kawauchi. Along the course local elementary school studen...

by Brett Larner #名古屋ウィメンズマラソン 🥇キルワ 🇧🇭 2:21:17 =3連覇 🥈安藤 🇯🇵 2:21:36 #nagoyawomensmarathon pic.twitter.com/aVP3sVJg2Q — EKIDEN_MANIA (@ekiden_mania) March 12, 2017 Rio Olympics silver medalist, two-time defending champion and course record holder Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) brought the race of her career to the Nagoya Women's Marathon .  And she needed to in order to win. Despite a fall at the start Kirwa was out strong, accompanied by the star first-timer of last year's Nagoya, Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), her debuting teammate Yuka Ando , and the likewise debuting Hisami Ishii (Team Yamada Denki).  The 5 km split of 16:51 put them on track for 2:22:12, just under the JAAF's London World Championships auto-selection standard of 2:22:30, but when the pacers took it up to 16:25 for the next 5 km the pace got too hot for Kiyota and Ishii. Kiyota made a few brave attempts to get back on board but quickly lost touch for good.  Ando, 10th at last year's C...