by Brett Larner
Traditionally held one week apart, the world's two top 30 km races, the Kumanichi 30 km in southern Japan and the Ome 30 km in Tokyo's mountainous western suburbs, were both held Feb. 19 this year.
With over 17000 runners in this year's field Ome has long been a popular mass-participation event along with hosting an elite race, but Kumanichi has typically been an elite-only event with only a few dozen men and a handful of women. Keeping with the explosion of mass-participation events, this year Kumanichi incorporated a new amateur full marathon, the Kumamotojo Marathon with a field of 10000, while keeping the small elite 30 km division on a new course covering most of the marathon course. The leading candidate for the London Olympics 10000 m squad, Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) took things in stride in his second Kumanichi appearance, splitting a solo 14:25 for the first 5 km well ahead of world record pace. Although he slowed progressively for t…
Traditionally held one week apart, the world's two top 30 km races, the Kumanichi 30 km in southern Japan and the Ome 30 km in Tokyo's mountainous western suburbs, were both held Feb. 19 this year.
With over 17000 runners in this year's field Ome has long been a popular mass-participation event along with hosting an elite race, but Kumanichi has typically been an elite-only event with only a few dozen men and a handful of women. Keeping with the explosion of mass-participation events, this year Kumanichi incorporated a new amateur full marathon, the Kumamotojo Marathon with a field of 10000, while keeping the small elite 30 km division on a new course covering most of the marathon course. The leading candidate for the London Olympics 10000 m squad, Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) took things in stride in his second Kumanichi appearance, splitting a solo 14:25 for the first 5 km well ahead of world record pace. Although he slowed progressively for t…