Beppu-Oita, Marugame and More

Beppu-Oita, Marugame and More - Weekend Preview

With championship ekiden season a wrap this weekend gets Japan's winter road racing season up to full steam. The main race of the weekend is Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon. Everything is about qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics more-or-less one-shot trials right now, and that's obvious with a look at what's probably the strongest-ever Beppu-Oita entry list. Ten men in the field have broken 2:10 in the last three years, five of them Japanese, with last year's top two Desmond Mokgobu (South Africa) and Hayato Sonoda (Kurosaki Harima) leading the way.

Sonoda, Daisuke Uekado (Otsuka Seiyaku) and 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) have already qualified for September's MGC Race trials event, but anyone else in the 2:10 to 2:11 range will have a shot. With a 2:09:36 in Tokyo last year Kohei Ogino (Fujitsu) only needs to run 2:12:24 to qualify, making him the probable favorite to qualify, but the field also features the debuts of sub-61 and sub-62 half marathoners Keijiro Mogi and Shuho Dairokuno of three-time national champion Asahi Kasei.

Along with Mokgobu recent 2:08 runners Hicham Laqouahi (Morocco) and Abdela Godana (Ethiopia) and 2018 Muenster Marathon winner Justus Kiprotich (Kenya) make up the front end of the international field, raising a strong chance of a sub-2:10 winning time if the weather cooperates. Right now the forecast is looking good, with temperatures in the mid-teens and cloudy skies shifting to light rain later in the day. All that remains to be seen are the infamous Oita winds. Beppu-Oita will be broadcast live nationwide on TBS starting at 11:50 a.m. Follow @JRNLive for English-language coverage.

Also Sunday is the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon, one of Japan's top races all around. Last year's Kenyan winners Betsy Saina and Edward Waweru are both on the entry list again, up against tough competition including Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post), Sinead Diver (Australia) and Sara Hall (U.S.A.) on the women's side and Geoffrey Kirui (Kenya), Shadrack Kiplagat (Kenya) and Evans Cheruiyot (Kenya) on the men's. Suzuki's debut is one of the more exciting parts of the race, along with that of Richard Ringer (Germany), both with great histories in the track 10000 m behind them. The weather in Marugame looks to be similar to that in Oita with temperatures a few degrees cooler.

Along with Marugame, the Kanagawa Half Marathon and Moriya Half Marathon each feature loads of university men, both Hakone Ekiden regulars and B-team runners trying to make the jump to their schools' A-rosters. Kanagawa in particular has grown into a quality race with winning times in the 62-minute range and depth approaching that of some of the higher-level Japanese half marathons. Hakone Ekiden top four programs Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University are Kanagawa regulars, but look for plenty of others to be right there with them. No rain is in the forecast for either race, making for excellent conditions overall.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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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