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Kawauchi Wins 7th-Straight Okinoshima 50 km
Running the Okinoshima 50 km Ultramarathon on his late father's home island of Oki for the eighth year in a row, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran 2:52:55 to win it for the seventh straight time. Starting strong on the relatively flat first 10 km where he clocked 33:26, low-2:47 pace, Kawauchi slowed to just over 2:50 pace on the course's toughest hills between 10 and 30 km. A sub-2:50 was still in range at that point, but over the last 20 km he faded further to finish in the second-slowest of his Okinoshima wins.
The day before the race Kawauchi paced children in Okinoshima's kids' run. Following that he greeted participants and local supporters at an expo event where he was hailed onstage as the Boston Marathon winner. As per his usual routine, his next race will be the July 1 Gold Coast Marathon in Australia.
Kauwauchi could easily be the first to break 2 hours in the marathon. He has the endurance needed, but his stride is not completely efficient. For instance, he bounces up and down 3" like most Western marathoners. But East Africans bounce only 2". We can reduce bounce to 1/2", which means he will be doing 1/6th of the work he does now. In addition, his stride angle (max opening between front and trailing thigh) is only 84 and 80 degrees. We can easily increase that to 100 degrees, which means he will be covering 32-40% more ground with each stride. He has been successful in part because he has little cross-over (6 degrees rt., 3 degrees left)and overstride (0 degees and 7 degrees), which protect his legs from being over-stressed when he runs. We can correct these problems in a few weeks (in addition to increasing his chest expansion to take in more oxygen) so he can set the record at Chicago. Our athletes have won 44 Gold Medals and have set 11 World Records. You can see our analysis of runners and the sub 2 marathon at http://www.somaxsports.com/video.php?analysis=running and the increase in stride angle at http://somaxsports.com/clients.php?client=osborneN Please email us with any questions. Best wishes.
https://www.paralympic.org/news/kobe-2024-para-athletics-world-championships-aitchison-athmani-lead-record-breaking-thursday Complete results and daily schedule from the Kobe World Para Athletics Championships are here .
It looked like it was going to be a big weekend, and it delivered. For the 3rd time in his career Suguru Osako broke the men's marathon NR, running 1 second under the standing record to take 4th in the Valencia Marathon in 2:04:55. All the way to 40 km he was steady on 2:58/km, 2:05:10 pace, and like a surprising number of other people in both the men's and women's races, there was a massive jump over the last 2.195 km from his projected finish time to his actual one. His run put Osako back on top of the Japanese charts, put the average of Japan's 10 fastest marathon times of the year under 2:06 for the first time, and got him into the L.A. Olympics marathon trials. Valencia has been trying to get top-tier Japanese athletes to come for years, and now that they finally managed to do it it paid off in a big way. Expect more next year. Back home, former Takushoku University captain Derese Workneh won a 3-way race against Toyota teammates Kazuya Nishiyama and Bedan Ka...
https://www.paralympic.org/news/kobe-2024-para-athletics-world-championships-monday-sees-shocking-wins-track-and-field Complete results and daily schedule from the Kobe World Para Athletics Championships are here .
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