Skip to main content

JRN's Top Ten Most-Read Articles of 2016

From Farah to Fukushi to Kawauchi, Ageo to Hakone to New York and back, JRN's ten most-read articles of the year.


1. Kawauchi Breaks World Record for Half Marathon in a Suit by 18 Minutes - Mar. 13
A week after running 2:11:53 at the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran his hometown Kuki Half Marathon dressed in his work clothes, a full three-piece suit including tie, belt and dress socks.  Kawauchi ran 1:06:42 for 3rd to beat the official Guinness World Record by 18 minutes, but because Kuki is not a certified course his time was not ratified as a new record.

2. Tsegay Over Makau for Fukuoka Win, Miracle-Worker Kawauchi 3rd - Dec. 4
2015 World Championships silver medalist Yemane Tsegay (Ethiopia) stopped former world record holder Patrick Makau (Kenya) from claiming a third-straight Fukuoka title.  Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) overcame injuries to both legs to take 3rd in one of the greatest performances of his career, all but guaranteeing himself a place on the 2017 London World Championships team.  Preview.

3. Mungara Downs Kawauchi By One Second, Horie Cracks Course Record at Gold Coast Airport Marathon - July 3
40+ world record holder Kenneth Mungara of Kenya raced Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) over the last 12 km of Australia's Gold Coast Marathon, getting the win by one second in 2:09:00 and Kawauchi scoring his first sub-2:10 in over a year and a half.  Misato Horie (Team Noritz) bettered 2015 Paris Marathon winner Meseret Biru and 2015 Frankfurt Marathon winner Gulume Chala of Ethiopia to take 37 seconds off the women's course record with a 2:26:40 PB win. Preview.

4. Mo Farah Scores Greatest Victory of His Career - Oct. 8
Gold medal collector Mo Farah (Great Britain) earned his greatest accolade to date, outperforming top Japanese models and comedians to win the Akasaka 5-Chome Mini Marathon, a 3.6 km race held around and through broadcaster TBS' studios as part of the fall 2016 edition of their All-Star Kanshasai variety show.  Farah overcame a 5:55 handicapped start to run down the last three comedians in the final few hundred meters.


5. Aoyama Gakuin University Leads Start to Finish to Win 2016 Hakone Ekiden - Jan. 3
Defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University became the first school in 39 years to lead the Hakone Ekiden start to finish as it won the world's biggest and best road race for a second-straight year.  Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Nihon Univ.) outran Aoyama Gakuin star Daiichi Kamino to win the uphill Fifth Stage, Hakone's most prestigious, and become its first-ever Kenyan winner. Day One results and report. Preview.

6. Kawauchi Scores First European Win at Snowy Zurich Marathon - Apr. 24
Immediately following Prince's untimely death his song "Sometimes it Snows in April" came true as 2015 runner-up Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) endured unexpected sleet and snow to win Switzerland's Zurich Marathon, his 25th win in 60 marathon starts.  2015 Zurich women's winner Yoshiko Sakamoto (YWC) fell victim to the conditions while leading and dropped out but was helped by a kindhearted spectator.  Preview.


7. An Honest Look at American Marathoning - Feb. 17
JRN attended the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles, where Galen Rupp won the men's race in his marathon debut and Amy Cragg outran former and current teammates for the women's win.  JRN looked back at almost 50 years of world and American marathon history to understand where American marathoning is going.

8. Takeda Follows Osako as Fourth Man to Break 62 Minutes at Ageo City Half, Leading 197 Under 66 - Nov. 20
Waseda University fourth-year Rintaro Takeda won a five-way sprint finish on the track, passing Kenta Ueda (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) on the last corner to win one of the world's deepest half marathons in 1:01:59.  The top five, all students from different universities tuning up for January's Hakone Ekiden, all ran 1:02:05 or better. Takeda and Ueda earned invitations to March's United Airlines NYC Half Marathon.

9. Rotich Wins Wild Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Kitajima Leads Four Japanese Men Sub-2:10 in Chase for Rio - Mar. 6
Kenyan Lucas Rotich won a chaotic Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon that saw 19-year-old Ethiopian Shura Kitata more than 45 seconds ahead at 25 km.  Hisanori Kitajima (Team Yasukawa Denki) won a tense four-way battle for the top Japanese spot and a place on the Rio Olympic team, almost running Rotich down on the last lap of the track. Preview.

10. Japan Surpasses U.S. as World's Largest Amateur Marathon Market - Jan. 22
In 2015 more people finished marathons in Japan than in the United States, the first time since 1961 that the U.S. fell to 2nd worldwide in total marathon finishers.  Japan also led the world in the number of 10,000+ finisher marathons with 19 taking place in Japan in 2015, nearly half the worldwide total for the year.

Honorable mention: In the top 25 most-read, this article was JRN's best work of the year but didn't get the reads it deserved.

The Kayoko Show: Long-Term Consequences of Agonistic Interactions Between Lobsters, and the Osaka Women's Marathon - Jan. 28
An example of a model for neurophysiological changes underlying long-lasting psychological effects of winning and losing, and of the potential to manipulate those changes via performance-enhancing substances.

all photos and video © 2016 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
except Kawauchi suit half marathon photos

Comments

Unknown said…
The lobster story was my personal favourite.

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

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr