Samuel Ndungu Wanjiku (born 4 April 1988) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who specialises in the 10,000 metres and road running events. He has a half marathon best of 60:55 minutes and a marathon best of 2:07:04 hours. A Japan-based runner, he has won the Lake Biwa Marathon, the Marugame Half Marathon, and was the 2010 Japanese Corporate champion the half marathon.
Ndungu became interested in athletics at a young age and joined a club at age twelve. He attended Kagondo High School, near Nyahururu in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. [1] His first successes in running came through competing in cross country races in his region. Starting from the age of fifteen, [2] he came fifth in the junior race at the Eastern Africa Region Cross Country Championships in 2005, [3] then won the junior competition the following year. [4] In April 2007, the nineteen-year-old Ndungu joined the Japanese corporate running team at Aichi Steel. [1]
After moving to Japan, he began to focus on track running and set bests of 13:30.29 and 27:48.03 minutes for the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres, respectively. He knocked his best down to 13:28.44 in the shorter event in 2008 and also started doing road races for Aichi. He came third at the Kosa 10 Mile Road Race and second at the Nagoya Half Marathon. [5] He continued running half marathons in 2009 and again placed top three in Nagoya and was fourth in Sapporo. The 2010 brought his first major accomplishments. After a strong performance as pacemaker at the Lake Biwa Marathon, [6] he won the title at the All Japan Corporate Team Half Marathon Championships with a personal best of 61:19 minutes. [7] He also reached the top three of the Sapporo Half Marathon that year. [8] He improved further in 2010, helping pace Wilson Kipsang to a course record at the Lake Biwa race and winning the Marugame Half Marathon with a best of 60:55 minutes. [9] [10]
Moving beyond his pacing days, he entered the 2011 Lake Biwa Marathon as a competitive runner. He made the second-fastest ever marathon debut in Japan (after Olympic champion Samuel Wanjiru) with his time of 2:07:04 hours, which was enough to win on his first outing, as he was half a minute ahead of Henryk Szost, who ran a Polish record. [11] Turning back to the shorter distance, he came runner-up to Martin Mathathi at the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon in May. [12] Building on his debut success, he was invited to the 2012 Chicago Marathon and he came close to his best with a run of 2:07:26 hours for seventh place at the World Marathon Major race. [13]
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