Skip to main content

Wanguru Wins Sprint Finish at Sanyo Women's Road Race

http://www.plus-blog.sportsnavi.com/kmanabu/article/133

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Team Kyudenko's Pauline Kiragu Wanguru won a five-way sprint finish at the 2008 Sanyo Women's Road Race half marathon to win in a PB of 1:10:54. A hilly course, cold temperatures and strong winds in the second half made for an overall tactical race. Five runners remained together with 400 m to go, meaning the race would go to the strongest kicker. Wanguru pulled ahead by a step to beat Team Sysmex's Megumi Seike, who came fresh from winning the Nov. 30 Shanghai Half Marathon, and Second Wind AC newcomer Ruth Wanjiru. Team Tenmaya's Yuka Izumi was 4th in a PB of 1:10:58, with Wanjiru's teammate Akemi Ozaki a short distance behind in 5th.

Second Wind AC head coach Manabu Kawagoe commented that the race was excellent preparation for Ozaki and Wanjiru's planned run in next month's Osaka International Women's Marathon, but that Ozaki was feeling in top condition and would have to be careful with her peaking. Ozaki and Wanjiru are scheduled to leave Dec. 24 for a training camp in Kagoshima Prefecture.

2008 Sanyo Women's Road Race Top Finishers
1. Pauline Kiragu Wanjiru (Team Kyudenko) - 1:10:54 - PB
2. Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex) - 1:10:55
3. Ruth Wanjiru (Second Wind AC) - 1:10:55
4. Yuka Izumi (Team Tenmaya) - 1:10:58 - PB
5. Akemi Ozaki (Second Wind AC) - 1:11:02
6. Yumiko Ando (Team Daiichi Seimei) - 1:11:41
Labels:

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
Great interview. Some things never change, one of them being the way Japanese runners train. They have never been any good at the 10,000 and they're still not. Getting worse, in fact. But they just don't get it.
This is from an article by Marcie Good on Jeff Schiebler, a Canadian who ran for NEC for a few years about 8 years ago. He ran twice a day; the Japanese ran 3 times a day...and of course he was the best runner on the team.
-- His teammates stick to their program. Recently, they met to discuss whether they could move forward their 5:30 a.m. wake up, because they found they had an extra ten minutes between their morning run and leaving for work. Schiebler, who sleeps in as long as he needs to, stepped in. "I said, 'Hey, do what I do, just scrap the morning training thing.' They said, 'You don't understand. We know that's what you do, and that's fine. But we're Japanese and we're not able to scrap the morning run.' "
December 25, 2008 at 10:27 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

CR Holder Teruki Shimada Returns to Launceston Half - Preview and Streaming

Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...
Post a Comment
Read more

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer.  These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly.  I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes.  As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway.  That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...
18 comments
Read more