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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As far as the unretirement, Osako announced on July 29, 2021 that he was going to retire after the Olympic marathon, which he ran on Aug. 8, 2021. On Feb. 7, 2022 he announced that he was coming out of retirement. It would probably take a lawyer to determine for sure whether that announcement happened exactly on the last day of a 6-month period following the Olympic marathon, but TV ratings in Japan for the men's marathon were more than double those for the women's marathon and it's safe to say a big part of that was due to Osako saying it was going to be his last race.