Margaret Akidor Breaks 3000 m JPN All Comers Record at Nittai

Two weeks after running 14:44.83 at Kanagawa's Nittai University Time Trials, 22-year-old Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) continued her rise up the ranks to global relevance with another stellar run at Nittai on Sunday. Running in the fastest 3000 m heat with support from 19-year-old Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera), Akidor took nearly 20 seconds off her best with an 8:32.53 for the win. That was the fastest ever run in Japan by 3 seconds and enough to put her #8 in the world this year.

Mwikali was solid too at 8:37.17, almost 10 seconds under her previous best and the next-best ever run in Japan apart from two dodgy early '90s marks by Soviet athletes. 3rd-placer Mizuki Michishita (Rikkyo Univ.) was in another league at 9:13.68. Kazuna Kanetomo (Kyocera) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:56.42, the only woman under 15 minutes.

In the men's 5000 m Kenyan Richard Etir won the A-heat in 13:16.20, a time beaten this weekend only by Benard Koech (Kyudenko) at Fukuoka's Sayagatani Time Trials meet, where Koech soloed a 13:14.28. In 5th behind Etir, Rikkyo University head coach Yuichiro Ueno, 37, improbably ran 13:39.95, a time that would be good enough to put him on his team's starting list for its Hakone Ekiden lineup in January. Four Japanese high school boys were under 14 minutes, the fastest being Kiyoto Ono (Akita Kogyo H.S.) in 13:56.18 to win the B-heat.

Adding to the massive depth at Friday and Saturday's MARCH pentangular and Hachioji Long Distance 10000 m time trial meets, another 60 men went sub-29 minutes at Nittai on Sunday to bring the weekend’s total to 199. B-heat winner Shun Yuzawa (SGH) was the fastest at 28:07.72, but there were other notable times. In the A-heat, Hakone Ekiden Select Team members Yuta Nakayama (Nihon Yakka Univ.) and Hayate Nitta (Ikuei Univ.) both rolled new PBs, Nakayama running 28:20.25 for 3rd and Nitta 28:21.14 for 4th. Jinichiro Kameda (Kansai Univ.) ran 28:25.80 for 9th, a new Kansai Region collegiate record and on the same level as the top Hakone teams in the Kanto Region. 11th-placer Kazuki Muroya (Kwansei Gakuin Univ.) was also under the old Kansai record in 28:30.46.

In the B-heat, 18-year-old Aoi Ito of Izumo and National University Ekiden champ Komazawa University had a stellar debut over 10000 m, running 28:28.15. 2nd-year Haato Komaki also joined Komazawa's deep sub-29 club, running a PB 28:52.71 for 9th.

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."...

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 .

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...

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