Four big races happen Sunday, and it's looking like only one of them might escape the cold rain that's forecast to hit most of the country that morning. That would be Kyoto's Biwako Cross Country meet, the lesser cousin of Fukuoka's National Cross Country Championships three weeks later but still filling an important hole in the calendar left by the demise of the Chiba Cross Country meet. Biwako attracts a few corporate teams and top high schools like Wacoal and Toyokawa H.S. , but its main claim to fame is as the National Junior High School Cross Country Championships. Complete entry lists here . In the heart of Yokohama's industrial zone Sunday is one of two big half marathons, the Kanagawa Half Marathon and 10 km . Top-tier collegiate runners will be headed for Marugame, on which more later, but a lot of the schools that ran last month's Hakone Ekiden will send big contingents from their rosters of alternates and B-tier runners, and that always makes it one...
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