In the morning comes Nagoya. The upper end of the domestic field took a hit with the expansion of Tokyo's women's field this year, but there's no shortage of talent from 2:24 on down. Only nine women have qualified for the MGC Race to date, but given the depth of the field it'll be a true shock if nobody hits the standards. #1-ranked Japanese woman Reia Iwade (Under Armour) already has and will be trying to up against sub-2:22 Kenyans Valary Jemeli and Visiline Jepkesho and maybe Ethiopian great Meseret Defar off a solid win at January's Osaka Half Marathon.
Not including Iwade, the first three Japanese women across the line will qualify if under 2:28:00. Three more can join them if under 2:27:00. Anyone beyond that needs to either go sub-2:24:00 or have a two-race average under 2:28:00 within the qualifying window. Most eyes will be on Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal), the half marathon national record holder and Rio Olympian in the marathon who fell badly and DNFd at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon in her bid to make a fifth-straight Olympic team. Not many will be on high-potential first-timers Mirai Waku (Universal Entertainment) and Miho Shimizu (Hokuren). But there is so much depth in the field that it could be anyone. Or no one.
Likewise at the noontime Lake Biwa. There's a great international field at the 2:06 to 2:08 level led by Deribe Robi (Ethiopia), Ernest Ngeno (Kenya) and London Olympics gold medalist Stephen Kiprotich (Uganda), perfectly positioned to motivate the field of eleven Japanese men with recent times in the 2:08 to 2:11 range to hit the qualifying standards, sub-2:11:00 for the first three (excluding the two existing MGC qualifiers in the race), sub-2:10 for the next three, or sub-2:08:30 / sub-2:11:00 on the two-race average.
As Tokyo showed, you can have all the depth of talent in the world and it might not work out, especially with unrealistic pacing, but as Beppu-Oita equally showed last month when the pacing is on it can add up to something special. If there's one Japanese man in the field who might pull out something extra-special it's Kenji Yamamoto (Mazda), already on deck for the MGC Race and looking at 2:06. Teammates Minato Oishi and Tsubasa Hayakawa ( both Toyota) look most poised to join the MGC ranks after brilliant runs at last month's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships.
Both Nagoya and Lake Biwa will be broadcast live nationwide, Lake Biwa on NHK which has taken to streaming its commercial-free broadcasts on its race website.
The weekend's other big race is the National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. One of the world's deepest races, every year the National University Half has winning times in the 61 to 62-minute range with dozens more close behind. This year the favorites include 2019 Hakone Ekiden stage winners Akira Aizawa (Toyo Univ.), Yuhei Urano (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Gaku Hoshi (Teikyo Univ.), with Junnosuke Matsuo and Reiri Nakashima set to represent Hakone winner Tokai University. The front end of the field will be racing to represent Japan at this summer's Napoli World University Games in Italy. JRN will be on-site in Tachikawa for the National University Men's Half.
© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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