Skip to main content

Khishigsaikhan and Kuira Break Ageo City Half Marathon CRs (updated)


Stellar conditions and a solid fields meant times were going to be fast at the Ageo City Half Marathon, and in both the women's and men's races the front end took full advantage of the day. In the midst of the super-deep men's field Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh, the top Mongolian in this summer's Budapest World Championships marathon and in last month's Hangzhou Asian Games marathon, ran steady and strong, splitting 33:29 at 10 km, 1:10:38 pace, before pushing the 2nd half. Khishigsaikhan crossed the finish line 1:10:32, 1:22 under the old course record, 3:35 ahead of 2nd-place Kana Kobayashi, and a massive 4:16 off the Mongolian women's national record. Khishigsaikhan is currently training in Japan and ran Ageo in prep for next month's Taipei City Marathon, where she was 3rd last year.




The men's race went out hard, with Kenyan Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), NR holder Yusuke Ogura (Yakult) and the ambitious Rei Matsunaga (Hosei) leading the main pack out just over 60-minute pace. Sub-60 Marugame Half winner Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) pulled up next to Kipyego and together they started to edge away from the pack, which boiled down to around 15 behind them. Kuira and Kipyegon stayed side-by-side on track for around 1:00:50 until around 19 km when Kuira surged to drop the younger Kipyegon and sustained the attack all the way to the end.




Kuira broke the tape in 1:00:47, 30 seconds under last year's 1:01:17 CR. Kipyegon was next in 1:01:07, also under the CR. Behind him, Waseda University 2nd-year Tomonori Yamaguchi closed hard over the last 5 km to come rapidly back into range of the fading Kipyego. He came up 9 seconds short, but his 1:01:16 was also under last year's CR and took 31 seconds off 5000 m NR holder Suguru Osako's Waseda school record from the 2010 Ageo. Matsunaga held on for 3rd in a PB of 1:01:56, joining Yamaguchi in scoring invitations to next March's United Airline NYC Half in an ongoing program curated by JRN. The New York Road Runners' Sam Grotewold was on-hand to present the duo with their invitations at the post-race award ceremony.




Not far behind, Mongolian men's NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Shin Nihon Jusetsu), now 42, improbably ran the 2nd-fastest time of his career, 1:02:37, to finish 14th overall in a tuneup for the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon in 2 weeks. En route he broke his own Mongolian road 5 km NR, splitting 14:23. "I loved the course," he told JRN post-race. "It had the perfect mix of flat and undulations. And so many fast guys! It was like getting on a shinkansen." After serial setbacks since a good run at last year's Oregon World Championships Ser-Od's hopes of becoming the first person to ever run 6 Olympic marathons look to still be alive.

And like always, the numbers just kept coming in. Ageo is ideally timed for the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound universities to run most of their rosters and thin down the numbers of contenders for their final Hakone lineups. Depth was incredible as always, even with direct conflict with the simultaneous 10-heat Kanto Region University 10000 m Time Trials meet going on at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo:

sub-61: 1
sub-62: 4
sub-63: 26
sub-64: 66
sub-65: 119
sub-66: 179
sub-67: 215
sub-68: 276
sub-69: 321
sub-70: 362

Ageo's claim to the title of the world's deepest half marathon is still as strong as ever, even in the face of challenges from other Japanese races like the National University Half Marathon and Hakone Ekiden Qualifier Half Marathon.

Update: Australian Matthew Fox (Sweat Elite) was disqualified and given a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Marathon after running 1:06:54 with another runner's bib in the JAAF-registered men's division. The finisher totals above have been adjusted to reflect his DQ.

36th Ageo City Half Marathon

Ageo, Saitama, 19 Nov. 2023

Women
1. Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh (Mongolia) - 1:10:32 - NR, CR
2. Kana Kobayashi (unattached) - 1:14:07
3. Aoi Makara (unattached) - 1:17:14
4. Kyoko Matsumoto (Chiba T&F Assoc.) - 1:18:58
5. Chisa Endo (PTC) - 1:19:33
6. Ruriko Ozawa (PTC) - 1:20:00
7. Seika Iwamura (Y&I) - 1:20:00
8. Makie Nakajima (Kanagawa T&F Assoc.) - 1:20:27
9. Chiaki Morikawa (ED Trucks) - 1:21:39
10. Chang Chih Hsuan (Taiwan) - 1:21:47

Men
1. Paul Kuira (Kenya/JR Higashi Nihon) - 1:00:47 - CR
2. Brian Kipyegon (Kenya/Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 1:01:07 (CR)
3. Tomonori Yamaguchi (Waseda Univ.) - 1:01:16 (CR)
4. Rei Matsunaga (Hosei Univ.) - 1:01:56
5. Peter Wanjiru (Kenya/Daito Bunka Univ.) - 1:02:00
6. Goki Takayama (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:05
7. Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) - 1:02:07
8. Tetta Shiratori (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:14
9. Shunki Niwase (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:15
10. Kenta Uchida (S.I.D. Group) - 1:02:23
11. Kuranosuke Yoshida (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:29
12. Hibiki Kikkawa (Meiji Univ.) - 1:02:31
13. Taiyo Yasuhara (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:34
14. Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Shin Nihon Jusetsu) - 1:02:37
15. Hikaru Tsujihara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:38
16. Kyosuke Hanao (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:39
17. Shumon Rohoman (Tokai Univ.) - 1:02:40
18. Yudai Katakawa (Asia Univ.) - 1:02:40
19. Masaki Kodama (Meiji Univ.) - 1:02:42 
20. Shun Inami (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:46
21. Kazuma Takeda (Hosei Univ.) - 1:02:48
22. Shoma Kamada (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:49
23. Shuto Ominato (Meiji Univ.) - 1:02:54
24. Ko Yamada (Tokyo Police Dept.) - 1:02:56
25. Shusuke Seo (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:57
26. Shoya Koyama (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:59
-----
50. Ryotaro Tomita (Suzuki AC) - 1:03:35
66. Ryota Fujiwara (Takushoku Univ.) - 1:03:59
100. Ryo Tsujikawa (RFA) - 1:04:45
119. Kakeru Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:57
150. Yuta Kamikariya (Hosei Univ.) - 1:05:38
179. Soma Sugitani (Asia Univ.) - 1:05:57
200. Takeshi Yoshida (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) - 1:06:40
216. Ryuki Nii (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:06:59
250. Yuichiro Kozai (Nihon Yakka Univ.) - 1:07:31
277. Kyota Kikuchi (Takushoku Univ.) - 1:07:59
300. Yuki Ishiguro (Nihon Yakka Univ.) - 1:08:27
320. Daichi Hirayama (Ushiku R.C.) - 1:08:57
350. Kohei Oshima (Saitama Univ. Grad School) - 1:09:36
363. Toshiki Koga (unattached) - 1:09:58
-----
DQ - Matthew Fox (Australia) - running with another athlete's bib

text and photos © 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Brett Larner said…
To the anonymous person who posted hourly identical demands for deeper results throughout the night while I was sleeping: That is a great way to ensure that I stop doing JRN altogether. I'm a person with a life outside JRN. I dedicate all of my available time and energy to JRN, and if I had the time and energy to post more you would see them. Relentlessly hounding me is only going to see me focus that time and energy somewhere else.
November 22, 2023 at 9:14 AM
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."
10 comments
Read more

Past Champs Win Again in Fukuoka and Hofu, Yang Breaks Chinese Men's NR, Tsutsui Break Hofu Women's CR

photo by Eldoreso , used with permission Japan's last two big marathons of the year both happened Sunday at the Fukuoka International Marathon and Hofu Yomiuri Marathon . Both came down to sprint finishes between a lead pack of four, and both saw past championships back on the top spot on the podium. Fukuoka only lasted through 15 km on the target pace for Japanese favorite Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima) to hit the 2:05:50 he needed to replace Suguru Osako (GMO) on the Paris Olympic team. Past 15 it slowed, with a halfway split of 1:03:00 that the lead group held until 30 km. At that point it was a lead group of six, with Hosoya, 2021 Fukuoka winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), 2017 Fukuoka winner Sondre Nordstad Moen (Norway), Chinese duo Shaohui Yang and Peiyou Feng , and two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist Abel Kirui (Kenya). The pace slowed between 30 and 35 km once the pacers stopped, but even so Feng and Kirui lost contact, leaving the other four on track
Post a Comment
Read more

10000 m National Championships Preview

Given all the breakthrough runs over 10000 m in Japan the last few weeks, enough to take Japan to 30 men sub-28 for the distance this year, it seems a bit odd to have the 10000 m National Championships happening this Sunday in Tokyo's National Stadium. But relative to the timing of ekiden season, the rest of the National Championships in the late spring, and next summer's Paris Olympics, it makes sense. NHKBS is broadcasting it live, with the men's race starting at 16:03 and the women's at 16:43. The 27:00.00 would be a stretch at this point for any of the Japanese men in the race, but one woman, former 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) has actually cleared the 30:40.00 standard before with a 30:39.71 at the 2022 Oregon World Championships. But that was before the qualifying window opened, so she'll have to try to continue to build back from the injuries she suffered last winter if she wants to hit the standard here. Her best this year is 31:35.12 at
3 comments
Read more