There are so many 10000 m time trial meets going on this month that you have to wonder if there's a limit. Two weeks ago the Nittai University Time Trials and Kyushu Corporate Time Trials had winning times of 27:40.58 and 28:12.70 in their fastest heats. Last weekend was the Autumn Distance Challenge meet at Tokyo's National Stadium, with Hiroki Nakayama (Teikyo Univ.) clocking the fastest men's time out of ten heats in 28:35.65 and 1st-year Haruka Ogawa (Rikkyo Univ.) leading the three women's heats in 32:29.14. Wednesday was the MARCH Taikosen meet, with Issei Sato (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) fastest out of the four heats in 28:11.00. There's another edition of Nittai on Saturday with eleven heats of 10000 m on the program and the 10000 m National Championships, Japan's selection event for the Paris Olympics, are coming right up on Dec. 10. But the big one is Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance meet.
Happening in Minami Osawa in western Tokyo this year, Hachioji has seven heats of 10000 m on the menu, with live streaming of all seven running from 14:00 to 19:00 local time. The target pace gets progressively faster, starting at 29:15 in Heat G at 14:40 to 27:50 in Heat A at 18:10. Heat A is the one you're going to want to pay the most attention to, led by Kenyan talent like 2022 World Championships 10000 m silver medalist Stanley Waithaka Mburu (Yakult), sub-27 men Richard Kimunyan (Logisteed) and Benard Kibet Koech (Kyudenko), collegiate 10000 m record holder Richard Etir (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.), 2021 World U20 Championships 5000 m gold medalist Benson Kiplangat (Subaru), Hakone Ekiden 2nd through 4th stage record holder Vincent Yegon (Honda), and a half dozen others in the 27:05~15 range.
On the Japanese front, Heat A has Olympic marathon trials runner-up Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko), Hakone Ekiden 1st stage record holder Yamato Yoshii (Chuo Univ.), and a power trio from this season's Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden winner Komazawa University, Mebuki Suzuki, Kotaro Shinohara and Keita Sato. Suzuki and Shinohara have both run under 27:45 before, but the 19-year-old Sato, the Japanese U20 record holder for 1500 m, outdoor and indoor 3000 m, and 5000 m, will be making his debut. Given that Sato's CR-breaking run at the National University Ekiden three weeks ago was equivalent to a 27:57 road 10 km, there's a decent chance he'll be adding the 27:59.32 U20 NR to his resume in his final race as a junior. 17 Japanese men have already run sub-28 in 2023, so the main question will be how high that number is going to go.
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