18-Year-Old Shimoda Sets Takanezawa Half Marathon Course Record

by Brett Larner

An alternate for Aoyama Gakuin University's course record-setting team at last week's Hakone Ekiden, 18-year-old Yuta Shimoda led the field with a 1:03:16 course record at the 42nd running of the Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon on Jan. 11 in Takanezawa, Tochigi. Shimoda's time was a PB by over 3 minutes and was enough to beat fellow AGU first-year alternate Yuki Nakamura by more than 45 seconds. AGU runners took the top four spots, with Hakone 6th-placer Tokai University alternate Ryunosuke Hayashi 5th in 1:04:28, also under the old course record. Nami Iwahara (Gazelle AC) won the women's division in 1:23:22.

Course records also fell at the Oita City Half Marathon in Kyushu. 2014 Kita-Kyushu Marathon winner Yuka Yano led a Canon AC Kyushu sweep of the top four spots in the women's race with a course record 1:13:41. Ethiopian Melaku Aberu, a runner for the locally-based Kurosaki Harima team, outran Oita native and sub-2:10 marathoner Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) for the win in the men's race in another course record of 1:02:47.

Solid women's results also turned up at the 16th Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon in Tokyo, where Eri Okubo (Miki House) beat her former teammate Yumiko Kinoshita (Second Wind AC) by nearly 30 seconds in 1:15:31. Minor league corporate runners Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) and Yusuke Kodama (Comodi Iida) went head-to-head in the men's race, Matsumoto getting the win by 8 seconds in 1:06:25.

42nd Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon
Takanezawa, Tochigi, 1/11/15

Men
1. Yuta Shimoda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:16 - CR, PB
2. Yuki Nakamura (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:02 - PB
3. Koki Ito (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:20 - PB
4. Kinari Ikeda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:25 - PB
5. Ryunosuke Hayashi (Tokai Univ.) - 1:04:28
6. Kokoro Watanabe (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:58
7. Nanami Arai (Tokai Univ.) - 1:05:02
8. Nozomi Okoshi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:05:31
9. Kento Tamura (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:05:53
10. Shu Ogasawara (Tokai Univ.) - 1:05:58

Women
1. Nami Iwahara (Gazelle AC) - 1:23:22

16th Tanigawa Mari Half Marathon
Arakawa, Tokyo, 1/11/15

Men
1. Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) - 1:06:25
2. Yusuke Kodama (Team Komodi Iida) - 1:06:33

Women
1. Eri Okubo (Miki House) - 1:15:31
2. Yumiko Kinoshita (Second Wind AC) - 1:15:55

Oita City Half Marathon
Oita, 1/12/15

Men
1. Melaku Abera (Ethiopia/Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:02:47 - CR
2. Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 1:04:19
3. Tatsuya Oshinomi (Team Nishitetsu) - 1:04:46
4. Junichi Tsubouchi (Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:04:56
5. Kaoru Nakahara (Team Kurosaki Harima) - 1:05:06

Women
1. Yuka Yano (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:13:41 - CR
2. Chieko Kido (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:14:19
3. Megumi Amako (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:16:09
4. Chiyuki Mochizuki (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:7:56

(c) 2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that Sis

Saturday at Kanaguri and Nittai

Two big meets happened Saturday, one in Kumamoto and the other in Yokohama. At Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet , Benard Koech (Kyudenko) turned in the performance of the day with a 13:13.52 meet record to win the men's 5000 m A-heat by just 0.11 seconds over Emmanuel Kipchirchir (SGH). The top four were all under 13:20, with 10000 m national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) bouncing back from a DNF at last month's The TEN to take the top Japanese spot at 7th overall in 13:24.57. The B-heat was also decently quick, Shadrack Rono (Subaru) winning in 13:21.55 and Shoya Yonei (JR Higashi Nihon) running a 10-second PB to get under 13:30 for the first time in 13:29.29 for 6th. Paris Olympics marathoner Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) was 9th in 13:30.62. South Sudan's Abraham Guem (Ami AC) also set a meet record in the men's 1500 m A-heat in 3:38.94. 3000 mSC national record holder Ryuji Miura made his debut with the Subaru corporate team, running 3:39.78 for 2n

93-Year-Old Masters Track and Field WR Holder Hiroo Tanaka: "Everyone has Unexplored Intrinsic Abilities"

In the midst of a lot of talk about how to keep the aging population young, there are people with long lives who are showing extraordinary physical abilities. One of them is Hiroo Tanaka , 93, a multiple world champion in masters track and field. Tanaka began running when he was 60, before which he'd never competed in his adult life. "He's so fast he's world-class." "His running form is so beautiful. It's like he's flying." Tanaka trains at an indoor track in Aomori five days a week. Asked about him, that's the kind of thing the people there say. Tanaka holds multiple masters track and field world records, where age is divided into five-year groups. Last year at the World Masters Track and Field Championships in Poland he set a new world record of 38.79 for 200 m in the M90 class (men's 90-94 age group). People around the world were amazed at the time, which was almost unbelievable for a 92-year-old. After retiring from his job as an el

japan running news

Search This Blog