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Ten Years of Japan Running News


Ten years ago today Japan Running News started with a story about the withdrawal of Wataru Okutani from the Japanese men's marathon team just before the start of the Osaka World Championships. The concept was to provide a high-quality and reliable source for information in English about as much of the fascinating and exciting but otherwise invisible world of Japanese distance running as possible, and in the ten years of almost daily updates since then that ideal hasn't changed.

The timing couldn't have been better, capturing the arcs of Samuel Wanjiru, Arata Fujiwara and Yuki Kawauchi, the rise of the Hakone Ekiden-driven university men's running circuit and of Japanese men's sprinting, and the buildup toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Along the way JRN has grown in ways we couldn't have expected, bringing writing jobs for publications worldwide and TV commentating work, the chance to work directly with some of Japan's best athletes and to travel around the world, and becoming the definitive English-language resource for both interested people and for other writers looking to add expertise to their own articles and books on the subject, credited or uncredited.

Below are four lists of some of JRN's best work over the last decade. The first lists our ten most popular stories by total read count, and the second gives the most-read story for each year excluding those on the first list. The third and fourth are lists of ten editor's picks of some of our favorite work that didn't necessarily rack up the views, the third made up of translations from Japanese media and the fourth of original contnet. There's no telling what the future holds, but we'd like to thank all the Japan Running News readers, supporters and colleagues over the last decade and hope that these stories remind you of some of the highs and lows of the years so recently gone by. Thanks for reading.

Brett Larner, editor in chief
Mika Tokairin, associate editor

JRN's All-Time Top Ten Most Popular Stories

  1. Last-Placer Named Winner After Entire Rest of Field Disqualified - Feb. 15, 2017
  2. Mekonnen Wins Tokyo Marathon, Amateur Kawauchi 3rd in 2:08:37 - Feb. 27, 2011
  3. Kipyego, Habtumu Win Tokyo Marathon, Fujiwara Back With 2:07:48 - Feb. 26, 2012
  4. Aoyama Gakuin University Breaks Izumo Ekiden CR in First-Ever Big Three University Ekiden Win - Oct. 8, 2012
  5. Hawkins and Kirwa Win Marugame Half, Takeshita Over Muiru in Kanagawa - Feb. 5, 2017
  6. Samuel Wanjiru Shares the Secret of Training to Win - Dec. 24, 2008
  7. History Comes Calling - Kipsang and Chepchirchir Run Japanese Soil Records at Tokyo Marathon - Feb. 26, 2017
  8. Kawauchi Breaks World Record for Half Marathon in a Suit by 18 Minutes - Mar. 13, 2016
  9. Hakone Champion AGU's Isshiki Leads 27 Under 1:03 and 265 Sub-1:06 at National University Half Marathon Championships - Mar. 1, 2015
  10. Joseph Gitau Takes Surprise Win in Fukuoka in 2:06:58 - Dec. 2, 2012

JRN's Most-Read Stories by Year (excluding above top ten)

397 Under 70 Minutes: The 20th Ageo City Half Marathon - Nov. 20, 2007

Deeper and Deeper Goes the Greatest Half Marathon in the World - Ageo 2008 - Nov. 17, 2008

Masters Runner Yoshihisa Hosaka Sets 60+ World Record at Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon - Feb. 2, 2009

Japanese University Select Team Takes First-Ever International Chiba Ekiden Win - Nov. 23, 2010

Ndambiri With the Win, Kawauchi With the Wonder - Fukuoka International Marathon - Dec. 4, 2011

Kenya Over Japan for Second-Straight International Chiba Ekiden Win - Nov. 23, 2012

Mathathi Makes Transition to Marathon in Fukuoka, Kawauchi 3rd in Third Sub-2:10 of 2013 - Dec. 1, 2013

Chumba and Tsegaye Set Tokyo Marathon CRs as Five Japanese Men Break 2:10 - Feb. 23, 2014

Sonota and Nishiyama Make It a Komazawa 1-2, Yiu Breaks own NR at Ageo City Half Marathon - Nov. 15, 2015

Tsegay Over Makau for Fukuoka Win, Miracle-Worker Kawauchi 3rd - Dec. 4, 2016

“The Miracle in Fukuoka” - Real Talk From Yuki Kawauchi on “Taking on the World” - Mar. 28, 2017

Editor's Picks - Translations

Chunxiu Zhou's Japanese Coach Shinya Takeuchi Seeks to Make Personal Compensation to China for WWII - Aug. 14, 2008

Reiko Tosa's "Homemade" Training for Tokyo Finale - Mar. 18, 2009

The Man in the Wig Speaks - Mar. 25, 2009

From the Editor: Women's Marathoning and the Autumn Sky - July 2, 2009

"The Rocky of the Marathon World" - Saitama Governor Praises Kawauchi - Feb. 28, 2011

Arata Fujiwara - His Olympic Marathon Defeat in His Own Words - Aug. 22, 2012

A Group Overflowing With Individuality - Aug. 23, 2012

Aum Death Cult Defendant Kikuchi, On Trial for Tokyo Bombing, Claims She Seriously Trained to Break Marathon World Record - June 3, 2014

"I Was Afraid" - Japanese Long Distance's World Championships in Its Own Words - Aug. 31, 2015

Kawauchi on Tokyo 2020: "It Feels Like the War -- If You Step Out of Line People Call You a Traitor" - June 7, 2017

Editor's Picks - Original Content

The Yokohama International Women's Marathon - An Idea Whose Time Has Passed? - Nov. 13, 2009

Credit Where Credit is Due: American and Japanese Men Aged 18-22 - Nov. 26, 2009

Wanjiru in the Words of Those Who Knew Him - May 16, 2011

Japan in Wanjiru - Dec. 19, 2011

How I Learned to Love the Ekiden and Why You Should Too - Dec. 20, 2012

A Second Chance to Make the Dream Come True - Yoshiko Sakamoto at the Zurich Marathon - Apr. 17, 2015

The Shape of Things to Come: Hakone, Where Things Are and Where They're Going - Jan. 11, 2016

Japan Surpasses U.S. as World's Largest Amateur Marathon Market - Jan. 22, 2016

The Kayoko Show: Long-Term Consequences of Agonistic Interactions Between Lobsters, and the Osaka Women's Marathon - Jan. 28, 2016

An Update on Eastern European Women in Japan - Apr. 26, 2017

Comments

Anonymous said…
10years already, time flies.
Congratulations Brett and keep them coming!!
Martin
TokyoRacer said…
Congratulations and thanks for 10 years of great reportage.
And thanks for listing the top ten stories. Somehow, I had missed the No. 1 - a classic!
koelmeyer said…
Thanks for the impeccable coverage, Brett.
I can't live without it!
Regards,
Gerard K

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Sprinter Shoji Tomihisa Retires From Athletics at 105

A retirement ceremony for local masters track and field legend Shoji Tomihisa , 105, was held May 13 at his usual training ground at Miyoshi Sports Park Field in Miyoshi, Hiroshima. Tomihisa began competing in athletics at age 97, setting a Japanese national record 16.98 for 60 m in the men's 100~104 age group at the 2017 Chugoku Masters Track and Field meet. Last year Tomihisa was the oldest person in Hiroshima selected to run as a torchbearer in the Tokyo Olympics torch relay. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the relay on public roads was canceled, and while he did take part in related ceremonies his run was ultimately canceled. Tomihisa recently took up the shot put, but in light of his fading physical strength he made the decision to retire from competition. Around 30 members of the Shoji Tomihisa Booster Club attended the retirement ceremony. After receiving a bouquet of flowers from them Tomihisa in turn gave them a colored paper placard on which he had written the characters