The Hakone Ekiden Qualifier, the world's deepest 20 km road race, takes place tomorrow, Oct. 15, in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. JRN will be on-site to cover the race and will be doing live English-language commentary via Twitter @JRNLive during the tape-delayed broadcast on Nihon TV from 3:30-5:00 p.m. Japan time on the 15th. Overseas viewers can watch online via Keyhole TV. Click here for JRN's preview of the race.
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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