18 Under 28 Minutes for 10000 m, 115 Under 29

18 Under 28 Minutes for 10000 m, 115 Under 29 - Weekend Track Roundup

Friday and Saturday were one of the busiest weekends of the year on the track, with high-level time trial meets going on across the country as Japan's best runners tuned up for championship ekiden season. All told 18 men broke 28 minutes and 115 went under 29 minutes for 10000 m.

This year Jakarta Asian Games steeplechase bronze medalist Kazuya Shiojiri (Juntendo Univ.) took a more conservative approach to prepping for the Hakone Ekiden than his 27:47.87 at last year's Hachioji Long Distance meet, opting to run his home ground Juntendo University Time Trials meet on Friday instead. Shiojiri won the 10000 m A-heat in 28:58.16, notably closing with a 58-second final lap.

Rio Olympics 10000 m silver medalist Paul Tanui (Kyudenko) also gave Hachioji a miss in favor of staying close to home, winning Friday's Time Trial in Nagasaki 10000 m A-heat in 28:20.03 by a margin of over two and a half minutes. Jakarta Asian Games marathon silver medalist Keiko Nogami (Juhachi Ginko) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:48.76.

The Hachioji Long Distance meet was the place to be on Saturday, seven heats of 10000 m at Hosei University in Tokyo's western suburbs. The A-heat was the biggest 10000 m in the world this year, with 19-year-old Ethiopian Dadi Tulu Merga (Yasukawa Denki) outkicking Kenyan Bernard Kimeli (Fujitsu) to lead 14 Japan-based Africans under 28 minutes in 27:25.86. National record holder Kota Murayama (Asahi Kasei) was the only Japanese man to finish the A-heat, targeting a sub-27:45 time but ending up 17th in 28:10.39. 5000 m national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) dropped out halfway through after having finished 4th in the D-heat in 28:33.92 in his first race since setting the marathon national record last month in Chicago.

The Japanese men in the B-heat had better luck, with the top four breaking 28 minutes. All-time Japanese #2 Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei) won in 27:55.85, narrowly edging out 2:06:54 marathoner Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) who cleared 28 minutes for the first time in 27:56.27. 3rd and 4th--placers Hiroki Abe (Meiji Univ.) and Takuya Fujikawa (Chugoku Denryoku) also went under 28 for the first time, Abe's 27:56.45 making him the fastest university man this year. 2:07:57 in Chicago behind Osako, Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) ran a PB 28:08.30 for 8th. A-heat finisher Kota Murayama's twin brother Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) won the C-heat in 28:12.53.

Abe and a few of the other top university men went for faster times in Hachioji, but most collegiate men and some of the best women were at Yokohama's Keio University for the Kanto Region University Men's Time Trials meet, 12 heats of men's 10000 m and two for women. Teammates Keita Yoshida and Taisei Hashizume of four-time Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University led the A-heat in PBs of 28:27.40 and 28:28.08, with Ichitaka Yamashita leading rival Komazawa University's contingent with a PB of 28:31.89 for 5th. 25 of the top 28 finishers in the A-heat ran PBs, the top 25 all breaking 29 minutes. Yuka Suzuki (Daito Bunka University) took 1st in the women's A-heat in 32:37.54 to lead the top five under 33 minutes.

Six days after setting a Swedish national record of 1:02:09 at the Ageo City Half Marathon, David Nilsson ran Saitama's Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials 10000 m A-heat as a recovery run and tuneup for next weekend's Kumamoto Kosa 10-miler. Alternating the lead with runners from Chuo Gakuin University and the Raffine corporate men's team, Nilsson dropped a 2:46 final 1000 m, kicking away from Rafine's Kenta Fukumura to win in a season best 29:33.54. In Kosa Nilsson will face Shiojiri, Kenta Murayama and other stars of this weekend's action. Also at Heisei Kokusai, 47-year-old Hiro Tonegawa ran 14:56.65 in the 5000 m, a mark believed to make him the oldest Japanese man ever to break 15 minutes.

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and

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