japan running news

The Ohtawara Marathon and 10 km took place Nov. 23 at DI Stadium in Ohtawara, Tochigi. 2803 people started the marathon at 10:00 a.m., with 2354 people finishing for a finisher rate of 84.0%. The race has a cutoff time of 4 hours, and all participants are able to use special drink tables. Most years there is a headwind blowing from the mountains of Nasu in the 2nd half of the race, but this year there was almost no wind and cloudy skies. Itto Otawa , a 23-year-old Tochigi local, won the men's marathon in a 2:13:04 course record. Otawa ran this year's Hakone Ekiden for Senshu University , placing 15th on the Ninth Stage. After graduating in March he was hired by the Shimotsuke Newspaper in Tochigi, where he works as a reporter. In August he ran a PB of 2:16:29 at the Hokkaido Marathon. "At work I'm mainly in charge of the Nikko beat," Otawa said. "My goal in Ohtawara this time was to break the course record. I've run a PB every time so far in the marathon...

The National Track and Field Championships in Niigata were the main event this weekend, but up north where it's cooler there were three important road races.   Chuo University won the 7-stage, 66.2 km university men's race at Saturday's 71st Oga Ekiden in Akita. Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University led on the first two stages, but on the 7.5 km Third Stage Chuo's Rei Yamahira took over the top spot and never let go. Chuo won in 3:22:42, with Aoyama Gakuin ultimately a minute and a half back in 3:24:12. Tokyo Kokusai University was a close 3rd in 3:24:53. Running the same distance, the Shingenden corporate team was the top placer in the open division in 3:31:06, well back from 4th-place university team Toyo University . Omuta H.S. won the 7-stage, 49.5 km high school boys' division in 2:30:10, with Sendai Ikuei H.S. taking the top 2 spots in the 5-stage, 21.3 km high school girls' race, its A-team winning in 1:08:56. Complete results here . At th...

With temperatures climbing over 30˚C, strong winds and at times heavy rain, 20,000 people ran the Hokkaido Marathon Sunday in Sapporo, which for the first time featured a two-wave start. Former Nihon University  Hakone Ekiden runner Patrick Mathenge Wambui , now with the NTT Nishi Nihon  corporate team, broke away from the rest of the field in his marathon debut and looked set for an easy win. But the hot and humid conditions hit him hard at the end of the race, and as he staggered in the home straight Wambui collapsed to the ground. He managed to get up and finish, just holding off the fast-closing Takumi Iwata  (JFE Steel), a superb effort that outweighed his winning time of 2:20:54 being the second-slowest winning time in Hokkaido history. Iwata was 2nd in 2:20:59, with Shoma Hosoya  (Logisteed) 3rd in 2:22:24. Tomomi Sawahata , an amateur runner and veterinarian in Tokorozawa, Saitama, took the women's race in 2:38:18, the fourth-slowest women's winning time. "I...

Japan's mass participation world took another step back toward pre-pandemic normality with at least 30,000 finishers in four big marathons over the long weekend. On Thursday's national holiday, course record holder Tomomi Sawahata added another Gunma Marathon win to her resume in 2:47:13, 10 minutes slower than her CR but enough to better 2nd-placer Mai Arizuka by 1:12. Yuji Shibukawa led the 9,747 finishers with a 2:22:12 win in the men's race. In her first marathon since winning August's Hokkaido Marathon and qualifying for Japan's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials next year, Haruka Yamaguchi broke her own course record at the Chiba Aqualine Marathon with a 2:39:26 for the win, her 3rd-straight win in Chiba Aqualine's four runnings to date. Takashi Mino won the men's race in 2:25:07, with a total of 14,994 people starting the race. Yamaguchi will run next weekend's East Japan Women's Ekiden. The Toyama Marathon had 12,068 finishers, two-tim...

Back from pandemic-era cancelation last year for its 4th edition, the Year-End Half Marathon took place Dec. 29 in Showa Kinen Park in the western Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa. Conceived of as a race for corporate and university teams that didn't qualify for the New Year Ekiden or Hakone Ekiden, this year it played to exactly that kind of field. イヤーエンドハーフ 11km地点 pic.twitter.com/dXwKGJP70W — 城西大学男子駅伝部 (@josai_ekiden) December 29, 2021 After a slow start  Peter Wanjiru , the first Kenyan to run for Daito Bunka University , and Kenta Uchida  of the SID Group corporate team went head-to-head up front, with a chase pack made up of people from Asia University , Josai University , Chiba University  and the Raffine  corporate team drifting further and further behind. Uchida, running the race as a final tune-up for next month's Chevron Houston Marathon, slipped back from Wanjiru in the final km, leaving Wanjiru to take the win in 1:03:18. Uchida, whose coach Junichi Shibata ...

Although the official new coronavirus case count 7-day average for the entire country of Japan has dropped below 200, about 1/5 that of New York City which hosted its marathon this past weekend , marathons as far away as the Mar. 13, 2022 Shizuoka Marathon are still citing pandemic risks and announcing fresh cancelations. Despite that, some of Japan's marathons have bucked the trend of timidity and are bringing large-scale races back. The Oct. 31 Kanazawa Marathon was the first, with 9,457 finishers and winning times of 2:17:03 by Junichi Ushiyama  and an excellent 2:35:52 PB by 47-year-old Mai Fujisawa .  On the Nov. 3 public holiday, the Gunma Marathon in Maebashi returned for its 31st running. 3,408 people finished, Taku Fujiwara  winning the men's race in 2:23:14 and Tomomi Sawahata  winning for the fifth time in a course record 2:37:02. The same day as New York, 8,880 people finished the 6th edition of the Toyama Marathon within its 7-hour limit. Hiroki Suga...

The National Cross-Country Championships were the weekend's most competitive race, but half marathons were the main source of road action. Takumi Obara (Komazawa Univ.) ran the fastest time of the day to win the 41st Inuyama Half Marathon in 1:03:52, outrunning Shoya Kawase (Seigakkan Univ.) by two seconds. Kawase's run was a rare sub-64 from a university man outside the Kanto Region, holding off 3rd placer Shota Ezomori (Waseda Univ.) by four seconds. Honoka Sugiura (Chukyo Univ.) dominated the women's race by nearly a minute to win in 1:13:31. Daiji Kawai (Toenec) won Inuyama's 10 km division in a strong 29:01, with Honoka Wada (Nagano Higashi H.S.) the fastest woman at 33:50. At the 68th Kashima Yutoku Half Marathon , Ryuichi Hashimoto (Juntendo Univ.) won the men's race in 1:04:40, with Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) taking the women's race in 1:15:01. Hikaru Kumagai (Raffine) ran almost the identical time to Hashimoto to win the 13th Fukaya City...

For the second year in a row Japan-based Kenyan Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) broke the course record at Kumamoto's Okukuma Half Marathon . Coached by 1992 Barcelona Olympics marathon silver medalist Koichi Morishita , Karemi took 27 seconds off his winning time last year to win by over a minute in 1:01:21. Joel Mwaura (Kurosaki Harima) was a distant 2nd in 1:02:40, with Karemi's teammate Yuki Oshikawa (Toyota Kyushu) taking the top Japanese spot at 3rd in 1:03:13. Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't) was 9th in 1:04:04 a week after running the Ibusuki Nanohana Marathon. In the women's race, Anna Matsuda (Kyocera), coached by former men's half  marathon national record holder Atsushi Sato , took 26 seconds off the course record to win in 1:13:10. Not far off, Kotomi Tsubokura (Wacoal) was a clear 2nd in 1:03:27 with Maki Saito (Higo Ginko) improving on her 10th-place finish last year to take 3rd in 1:14:46. Also Sunday, up in Tokyo the Akabane Ha...

For the second year in a row Bahraini Shitaye Habtegebrel found herself knocked down to 2nd in the Saitama International Marathon 's home straight, this time to fellow Ethiopian-born emigrant Dalila Gosa . Part of a group of nine that immediately separated from the main body of the elite women-only race behind three pacers, both Gosa and Habtegebrel stayed at the front of the pack on mid-2:25 to low-2:26 pace as its five Japanese constituents and lone Ethiopian national Fatuma Sado dropped off one by one. When the last pacer stepped off at 30 km Habtegebrel and Gosa took turns leading in a successful effort to drop Kenyan Sylvia Kibet . Last year Habtegebrel lost out to Flomena Cheych Daniel of Kenya by 3 seconds in the home straight, both of them ultimately having their times disallowed due to poor direction on the final corner . This time both Gosa and Habtegebrel successfully turned at the right spot thanks to improved course marking and marshaling, but Habtegebrel agai...

Lost in the luminosity of Eliud Kipchoge 's world record and Gladys Cherono 's women's course record at the Berlin Marathon were a score of Japanese results there and elsewhere overseas, ranging from the sparkling to the dull. Cherono and 2nd and 3rd placers Ruti Aga and Tirunesh Dibaba all broke Mizuki Noguchi 's Berlin Marathon course record of 2:19:12 which has stood since she set that national record mark in 2005. A kilometer behind Dibaba, Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) followed up her 2:22:44 debut in Osaka in January with a 2:22:23 PB for 5th, making her just the fourth Japanese woman ever to break 2:23 twice in her career. 2:23:46 woman Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) ran 2:25:23 for 7th, beating Tenmaya teammate Rei Ohara whose 2:27:28 put her only 10th but qualified her for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon trials, only the second athlete after 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) to qualify for the trials under the two-race average ...

Rio 10000 m Olympian Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) made a good debut Sunday at the Paris Marathon , finishing 8th in 2:26:13. Takashima started fast, on sub-2:21 pace until just before 30 km before fading. Her time was the 4th-fastest this year by a Japanese woman and best so far this season outside Japan, and it put her well within reach of the two-race sub-2:28:00 average route to qualifying for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials marathon. Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) was 11th in 2:38:15 and Kanae Shimoyama (Noritz) 16th in 2:45:34. Yoshiki Koizumi (Raffine) was the top Japanese man at 24th in 2:20:29. Things went less smoothly at the Rotterdam Marathon . Running her third marathon in less than four months in a desperate attempt to get her MGC Race qualifying time this season, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon course record holder  Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) went through halfway on schedule in 1:13:22 before starting to slow, ultimately finishing in 2:47:25 for 15th. On the men's side Yuki Yagi (Y...

Along with the National Cross-Country Championships and Tokyo Marathon, the weekend saw competitive half marathons across the country and nearby in South Korea. Yuta Shimoda of four-time Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University turned the fastest time of the weekend with a 1:03:20 win at the Kashima Yutoku Road Race half marathon, beating sometime training partner Aritaka Kajiwara (Hiramatsu Byoin) by 35 seconds. A week after his course record-breaking win at the Kitakyushu Marathon, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) won the local Fukaya City Half Marathon in Saitama in 1:04:26, beating corporate leaguer Rui Watanabe (Shindengen) by 29 seconds. Amateur Tomomi Sawahata (Sawahatters) scored yet another road race win in 1:15:42, the fastest time of the weekend by a Japanese woman. At the 40th anniversary running of the Inuyama Yomiuri Half Marathon , Toyo University first-year Ryoga Asai won in 1:04:44. Eri Watanabe (Aichi Denki) took the women's race i...

Yuki Kawauchi is the undisputed heavyweight champ of high volume marathoning, but there's a new contender on the horizon already blowing minds in Kawauchi's home of Saitama. Meet Tomomi Sawahata . In sixteen days this month Sawahata, 24, won three marathons, all in course record time, all under 2:42 and two in PBs, to give her a streak of fifteen marathon wins since April, 2015, undefeated after a tentative first step at the 2014 Honolulu Marathon. According to the ARRS database , it's one of greatest marathon win streaks at the elite or sub-elite level in history, male or female. Who in the world is she? Born in 1993, Sawahata was an ordinary high school runner at Tokorozawa Kita H.S., favoring the 3000 m on the track and finishing 15th on her stage at the Saitama qualifying race for the National High School Ekiden Championships her senior year. After graduating she enrolled at Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University to study veterinary nursing, following in th...

After missing a medal by 3 seconds at August's London World Championships , defending champ Flomena Cheyech Daniel (Kenya) made it two in a row as she won a tight battle against Shitaye Habtegebrel (Bahrain) to win the Saitama International Marathon in 2:28:39. With the onus on Japanese women Reia Iwada (Dome) and Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) to break 2:29:00 in order to qualify for Japan's new-format 2020 Olympic trials race , the pair of them did most of the heavy lifting for the first two-thirds of the race. Yoshida led the early kilometers before Iwade took over, and through strong head and tailwinds, over rolling hills and around sharp turns Iwade kept things moving just under target pace, shaking the pack down to just her, Daniel, Habtegebrel and relative unknown Bekelech Daba (Ethiopia) by 15 km. Little changed up front until after the lead group hit the start of the hilliest 10 km on the course after 25 km. For the first time Iwade slipped to the rear of the pa...