by Brett Larner Jonathan Ndiku, Kazuhiro Maeda and Martin Mukule battle in the Pro A heat. With the ekiden season drawing to a close, jitsugyodan and university teams across Japan are in the process of finalizing their lineups for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden and the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden . Massive track time trials are common this time of year; last week JRN detailed the 199th Nittai University Time Trials meet. This week on Nov. 29 Team Konica Minolta hosted the National Long Distance Meet series of 10000 m time trials at Tokyo's National Stadium. Not a public meet in the usual sense of something publicized to attract fans, the National Long Distance Meet is in fact a day-long set of 19 heats of men's time trials, 13 for university students and 6 for jitsugyodan runners and a select few university aces, along with one 5000 m heat for university women. All 6 of the professional heats featured top Kenyans as pacemakers, most notably 2:06:16 marathoner Daniel Njenga (Team Yaku
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