JRN reader Juan Jose Martinez recently posted video highlights of Atsushi Fujita's national record 2:06:51 win at the 2000 Fukuoka International Marathon on his website. Fujita, who at the time had already broken Toshihiko Seko's long-standing university marathon record, outran several Olympic medalists to set the then-national record. His time after the 35 km point remains the fastest finish ever run in Fukuoka, faster than the marks set by Haile Gebrselassie, Samuel Wanjiru, Tsegay Kebede, Jaouad Gharib, Deriba Merga or anyone else. Click here to watch the classic video.
The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin
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