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Kanagawa, Marugame and Beppu-Oita - Weekend Preview

Sunday features three big races on the early post-ekiden calendar. In Yokohama, the Kanagawa Half Marathon always hosts dozens and dozens of university runners from top Hakone Ekiden schools like Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University on its fast if spectacularly unscenic industrial zone course. Kanagawa also features a high-level 10 km that usually attracts some of the better university women.

The top college guys will opt for the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon, where they'll face off against national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda), 2017 winner Callum Hawkins (Great Britain), sub-60 men Zane Robertson (New Zealand/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and Kelvin Kiptum Cheruiyot (Kenya) and more. Spots on the World Half Marathon Championships are on the line for the top finishers. The women's race has three sub-1:09 women up front including Sanyo Half winner Charlotte Purdue (Great Britain), last month's Okukuma Half winner Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) and last year's 3rd-placer Sinead Diver (Australia). Live tracking details can be found in Japanese here.

Further south at the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, last year's runner-up Abdela Godana (Ethiopia) leads what looks set to be a 2:08 to 2:09 race, with competition from Kenyans John Korir and Matthew Kipsat, Eritrea's Ogbe Kibrom Ruesom, and local sub-2:10 Japanese men Satoru Sasaki (Asahi Kasei), Takuya Fukatsu (Asahi Kasei) and Jo Fukuda (Nishitetsu). Only one Japanese man, Kentaro Nakamoto, has won Beppu-Oita in the last five years, so fans will be hoping for one of the local boys to make good. Shizuoka Marathon winner Rochelle Rodgers (Australia) leads the small women's field and should have little trouble becoming Beppu-Oita's first foreign women's champion. International live streams of the TBS broadcast may be available here or here starting an noon Japan time. Japanese-language tracking can be had here. @JRNLive will also be covering Beppu-Oita live.

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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