The level at the Hakone Ekiden just keeps going up and up. Every year it seems like it can't go any further, and then it does. 3 stages this year had new course records, 9 out of 10 legs had at least one all-time top 10 mark, and 4 stages had 4 times inside their best-ever 10. In the absolute sense, shoes have played a part in that over the last few years, but in a relative sense the best college teams have at least equalled the top of the corporate leagues, and the teams behind them are getting closer and closer to the same level. At this year's 98th running on Jan. 2 and 3 Aoyama Gakuin University broke its own course record to make it 6 wins in 8 years. AGU clocked 10:43:42 for the complete 10-stage, 217.1 km course, an average of 2:57.9/km the entire way. How does that compare to Honda , which won the New Year Ekiden corporate men's championships on Jan. 1? Honda ran 4:51:04 for the 7-stage, 100.0 km course, averaging 2:54.6/km over an average 14.3 km stage lengt...
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