Yoshimatsu Wins 7th Hofu Marathon Title, Kawauchi Over Bat-Ochir

2018 Geneva Marathon runner-up Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) became the winningest champion in the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon's 49-year history Sunday, soloing a 2:38:58 to win Hofu for the 7th time. Running in cold and rainy conditions just three weeks after finishing 5th at the Osaka Marathon in 2:37:01, Yoshimatsu set off at mid-2:36 pace before slowing. Crossing halfway in 1:19:18 she turned the pace back around toward 2:37 territory before slowing again past 35 km to just squeeze under 2:39.

The fourth-fastest of her Hofu wins, Yoshimatsu beat her first winning time from way back in 2006 by 20 seconds and runner-up Chika Tawara (Team RxL) by almost 5 minutes. "I'm disappointed with my time," she told JRN post-race. "Other amateur women are running 2:34ish so it's hard to be satisfied with this. Maybe that's just being greedy." After the Osaka-Hofu double she will wrap her season in 3 weeks at China's Xiamen Marathon.

The men's race ran steadily near 2:09-flat pace until the departure of the pacers at 25 km, when it abruptly slowed by over 7 seconds per km. Two weeks after setting a Mongolian national record at the Kumamoto Kosa 10-Miler, three-time Hofu winner Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (NTN) made a few injections of pace as the lead group shrank down to a core group of five, but in the end he couldn't match the closing speed of fellow three-time winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't).

Kawauchi closed from 40 km to the finish in 6:30 to win in 2:11:29, his best time of the year and making him the first man to win Hofu four times. Bat-Ochir was next in 2:12:12, his fastest time since 2015, just holding off Kenyan Ezekiel Cheboitibin (Sunbelx) who was 3rd in a PB of 2:12:17. South Korean Jong-Sub Shim was 6th in 2:14:05, fading late in the race to just miss setting the fastest mark of the year by a South Korean man.

フルマラソン今年12回目！
防府読売マラソン川内優輝(31)優勝
2時間11分29秒 pic.twitter.com/O4EsOb2Mv2
— TFchannel (@tf__channel) December 17, 2018

49th Hofu Yomiuri Marathon

Hofu, Yamaguchi, 12/16/18
complete results

Women
1. Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) -2:38:58
2. Chika Tawara (Team RxL) - 2:43:49
3. Chihiro Aibara (Nidaime Kiyomi Shokudo) - 2:48:09
4. Masa Shimizu (Amagasaki T&F Assoc.) - 2:48:18
5. Ai Ogo (Himeji T&F Assoc.) - 2:50:43

Men
1. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) - 2:11:29
2. Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/NTN) - 2:12:12
3. Ezekiel Cheboitibin (Kenya/Sunbelx) - 2:12:17 - PB
4. Shinichi Yamashita (Takigahara SDF Base) - 2:12:28 - PB
5. Michael Githae (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:13:42
6. Jong-Sub Shim (South Korea) - 2:14:05
7. Kohei Oshita (Hiroshima Keizai Univ.) - 2:15:09 - PB
8. Tatsunori Hamasaki (Nanjo City Hall) - 2:20:17
9. Masashi Hashimoto (Takeda Yakuhin) - 2:20:35
10. Tomonori Sakamoto (Kanagawa T&F Assoc.) - 2:21:01

photo © 2018 M.Kawaguchi, all rights reserved
text © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and

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