China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from Jie He at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46. At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda won the men's race in 2:20:08. Chika Yokota won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33. Yuki Yamada won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km....
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