Know Your Japanese Runners in Boston

The withdrawal of Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki), Japan's best championship marathoner of the modern era, from the Boston Marathon field with a stress fracture is a blow to what would have been the best Japanese contingent in Boston in decades.

Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) leads the way, arriving in Boston off wins in his last four marathons:

2:10:03, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon, 12/17/17
2:18:59 CR, Marshfield New Year's Day Marathon, 1/1/18
2:11:46 CR, Kitakyushu Marathon, 2/18/18
2:14:12, Wan Jin Shi Marathon, 3/18/18

Kawauchi hopes to at least equal Suguru Osako's top 3 placing in last year's Boston, his optimism growing as the weather forecast gets worse.

Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) runs for what was once Japan's most successful corporate team in the marathon, his best of 2:12:31 coming 6 years ago at Lake Biwa and his fastest recent time a 2:13:33 in Tokyo last year. Okamoto earned a place in Boston by winning February's tough and hilly Ome 30 km in 1:33:09.

A high-volume marathoner like Kawauchi, Kansuke Morihashi (Raffine) won January's Katsuta Marathon in 2:16:51 to earn an invite to Boston. A month later he followed up with a PB of 2:14:25 at the Tokyo Marathon, jogging the Seoul Marathon three weeks after that in a fun run effort.

Topping the women's side is another idiosyncratic high-volume marathoner, Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead). Yoshitomi won the hilly Katsuta Marathon in January in 2:33:56, the second-fastest winning time in event history, then came back a week later to smash the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon course record with a 2:33:00 win. A week after that she took 9th in the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships in 1:13:58. Two weeks later in Tokyo she ran 2:30:16 for 6th, cutting over a minute off her five-year-old PB. Three weeks after that, a 2:33:57 win in her hometown Saga Sakura Marathon.

Ome women's winner Maki Ashi (Kyudenko) rounds out the Japanese lineup in her marathon debut at age 24. A 1:11:12 half marathoner, Ashi ran 1:44:14 in Ome to seal up a trip to Boston. Interestingly, joining her in Boston as her coach is the just-retired Kazuhiro Maeda, a longtime rival of Kawauchi's who was part of the 2013 Moscow World Championships team alongside both Kawauchi and Nakamoto.

All-time Boston Marathon Japanese Men's Top Ten

2:09:27 - Toshihiko Seko, 1st, 1981
2:10:13 - Toshihiko Seko, 2nd, 1979
2:10:28 - Suguru Osako, 3rd, 2017
2:11:02 - Hiromi Taniguchi, 4th, 1993
2:11:32 - Kenjiro Jitsui, 6th, 2006
2:11:50 - Toshihiko Seko, 1st, 1987
2:13:15 - Takayuki Inubushi, 10th, 1998
2:13:40 - Tomoyuki Taniguchi, 5th, 1987
2:13:49 - Yoshiaki Unetani, 1st, 1969
2:13:55 - Akinori Kuramata, 11th, 1998

All-time Boston Marathon Japanese Women's Top Ten

2:24:11 - Reiko Tosa, 3rd, 2006
2:26:26 - Yoshiko Yamamoto, 2nd, 1992
2:26:39 - Yuko Arimori, 3rd, 1999
2:26:52 - Kiyoko Shimahara, 5th, 2006
2:29:24 - Nobuko Fujimura, 3rd, 1996
2:30:34 - Mitsuko Hirose, 8th, 1999
2:30:40 - Yurika Nakamura, 6th, 2010
2:31:12 - Junko Asari, 6th, 1997
2:31:31 - Kaori Tanabe, 10th, 2001
2:31:39 - Yoshiko Yamamoto, 6th, 1995

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

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

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi

Shiojiri, Kasai and Tazawa Scratch from Hachioji Long Distance, 5000 m Dropped from Program (updated)

On Nov. 15 the East Japan Corporate Federation announced that 10000 m national champion and Paris Olympian Jun Kasai (Asahi Kasei) and Budapest World Championships team member Ren Tazawa (Toyota) have both withdrawn from the 10000 m at the Nov. 23 Hachioji Long Distance meet. This year's Hachioji Long Distance features a special heat set up to target the 27:00.00 qualifying standard for next year's Tokyo World Championships. Along with Kasai and Tazawa, national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) and other top-level Japanese talent are scheduled to compete. After last January's New Year Ekiden , Tazawa sustained an injury that forced him to miss May's National Championships 10000 m and other races including the Paris Olympics. At the end of September he ran 13:36.99 for 5th at the Yogibo Athletics Challenge Cup meet, but, he said, "My balance felt off and the back of my left knee hurt." In Kasai's case, after winning the national title in M

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