Come join us in June for the 25th Annual Ekiden 4 x 5K relay race and 5K road race! These races are scheduled for June, 2010.
Too far? Then maybe the 2K Kids Fun Run is the race for you! Either way, be our guests for a good time and an action-packed day to remember.
Last year, over 4,500 Japanese runners came from all over the Kanto Plain to join the fun.
Registration is limited to 1000, 4 person teams,1500 runners for the 5km race and 250 for 2km fun run. The cut-off date is May 2010 for SOFA card holders.

Note: Runners from off-base require photo ID for entry onto Yokota AB (passport, driver's license, official ID).

An Ekiden history lesson...
An Ekiden, sometimes called a marathon relay in English, is a long-distance relay, road race. Ekiden originated in Japan, although the concept of a long distance relay race is probably not original or unique to any country. The first Ekiden race was sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1917, and was run over three days between the old Japanese capital of Kyoto and the modern capital of Tokyo, a distance of 508km, to celebrate the anniversary of the moving of the capital to Tokyo.

The popularity of Ekiden in Japan is unsurpassed in any other country, and its popularity has spread around the world with races run in New Zealand, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, China, Germany, France, the United States, Korea, and elsewhere. "Ekiden" (??) in Japanese combines the characters for "station" and "transmit". This name was coined by the poet Toki Zemmaro Toki Zemmaro (1885-1980), who was head of the Yomiuri Shimbun's Social Affairs Department at the time. The original concept of the race hearkens back to Japan's old Tokaido communication and transportation system in which stations were posted at intervals along the road. In the race, each runner on a team runs the distance from one "station" to the next, and then hands off a cloth sash, or tasuki, to the next runner. The lengths of Ekiden can vary greatly, with some local, amateur races covering 20-30km with five or six runners on a team, and larger national and international races running a full marathon (42.195km) or longer, also usually with five or six runners per team. Some races can stretch hundreds of kilometers long.

One of the most popular modern Ekiden in Japan is the Hakone Ekiden, which features teams of students from various Japanese universities. This race from Tokyo to Hakone and back is held over two days at the New Year, and is a popular spectator sport that receives full network television coverage nationwide. Runners in the race compete to set individual records as well as to support their teams, and the race is considered to display many aspects of Japanese culture and spirit, including individual perseverance, identity within a group, and the importance within the Japanese hierarchy of allegiance to a major university.