Skip to main content

Ishihara Breaks Into 3000 m All-Time Top Three - Weekend Track Highlights


With the Japanese academic and fiscal year ending Wednesday, this year saw one last blowout with decently competitive track time trial meets across the country.

At the Asahi Kasei corporate team's home track in Nobeoka, 2016 Rio Olympics steepler Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) led five men under the 28:16.00 B-standard for May's 10000 m National Championships, winning in 28:09.10. Olympic marathon team alternate Shohei Otsuka (Kyudenko) had a bad day of it, off the back in the first lap and finishing last in 29:55.91. Keijiro Mogi (Asahi Kasei) led start to finish in the slower heat to win in 28:48.58.

In suburban Tokyo, National University Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University dominated the fast races at the Setagaya Time Trials meet. Komazawa's Takumi Karasawa won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:40.90, with teammate Mebuki Suzuki bouncing back from qualifying for the World University Games half marathon two weeks ago to win the 3000 m A-heat in 8:01.83.

One of the stars of this year's Hakone Ekiden, Tokai University first-year Shotaro Ishihara was even faster than Suzuki, running 7:58.26 to win Tokai's home ground time trials meet 3000 m A-heat and landing at all-time #3 on the Japanese U20 lists. The top 11 were all under 8:10, an exceptionally good race by Japanese standards. Johnson Mogeni (Yugakkan H.S.) won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:40.27. Club runner Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto) outran corporate leaguers from the Daiichi Seimei and Panasonic teams to win the women's 3000 m A-heat in a PB of 9:22.76. 

At the Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials meet, Judy Kipngetich (Masuda Higashi H.S.) ran 8:59.53 to win the women's 3000 m A-heat by over 25 seconds. Seia Hotta (Chiharadai H.S.) won the men's 5000 m A-heat in 14:05.57.

Usually the biggest of the time trial meets, this time the Nittai University Time Trials was relatively low-key, with Yuya Ueda (Hiramatsu Byoin) turning in just about the only noteworthy run as he won the 5000 m fast heat in 13:56.89.

© 2021 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more