japan running news

by Brett Larner The organizers of the Mar. 17 National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships , Japan's last major road race before track season, released its 2013 entry lists on Mar. 5.  With no World Half Marathon Championships this year there are no national team places on the line, but the fields are deep nevertheless. Having struggled in recent years, 2008 Kenyan national XC champion Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) heads the men's list along with last year's runner-up  Jacob Wanjuki (Team Aichi Seiko), 2010 World Half Marathon 9th-place Tomoya Onishi  (Team Asahi Kasei),  Micah Njeru  (Team Toyota Boshoku) and 2012 Sendai International Half Marathon winner  Johana Maina  (Team Fujitsu).  Besides Onishi eight other Japanese men with sub-62 bests are close behind, led by Yuta Igarashi  (Team JR Higashi Nihon) and Daisuke Matsufuji (Team Kanebo).  2012 national 5000 m champion Kazuya Deguchi  (Team Asahi Kase...

by Brett Larner 2010 Hakone Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University's Shota Inoue took the top spot at the 2010 Tachikawa Akishima Half Marathon in Tokyo on Mar. 14, winning in 1:03:11 by two seconds over Ryohei Kawakami of 2010 Hakone winner Toyo University. Doubling as the National University Men's Half Marathon Championships, in 2009 Tachikawa Akishima was the deepest half marathon in the world. This year the top seven men broke 1:03:30, with Kawakami's teammate Hiroyuki Uno 8th in 1:03:31. Altogether 106 men broke 1:06. 2010 Tachikawa Akishima Half Marathon - Top Finishers 1. Shota Inoue (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:03:11 - PB 2. Ryohei Kawakami (Toyo Univ.) - 1:03:13 3. Yuta Igarashi (Senshu Univ.) - 1:03:15 4. Ryota Nakamura (Teikyo Univ.) - 1:03:16 5. Akinori Iida (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:03:17 - PB 6. Koji Kobayashi (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:17 7. Hideki Inomata (Waseda Univ.) - 1:03:24 8. Hiroyuki Uno (Toyo Univ.) - 1:03:31 (c) 2010 Brett Larner all rights reserved

by Brett Larner with athlete quotes from Komazawa Univ. website Click picture for more race photos by Narachan. Additional photos are available here . The 12th National University Half Marathon took place on Mar. 8 in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park in conjunction with the 28th Tachikawa Akishima Half Marathon . The race served as both the first qualifier for the men's half marathon team for July's World Student Games in Serbia and the final race for graduating seniors. Daiichi Kogyo University's Kiragu Njuguna led a large pack of top university runners and a few professionals, gradually edging away to take the win in 1:02:24 with a slim 17 second lead over runner-up Soji Ikeda of Komazawa University. Ikeda, who was captain of this year's ekiden team, commented, "I'm really happy that I ran a good race today. Looking back on the last four years, as captain I didn't want to end with something as bad as this year's Hakone Ekiden. I'm glad it coul...