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

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin
Post a Comment
Read more

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi
Post a Comment
Read more

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and
Post a Comment
Read more