Weekend Road and Track Streaming and Preview

With championship ekiden season right around the corner there aren’t many weekends this time of year that aren’t busy ones in Japan. This one is another one. Saturday is the 85th Tango University Ekiden in Kyoto, the 8-stage, 74.4 km season-ender for Kansai Region university teams.

This year a few of them had the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden qualifier in October to try to achieve the hopeless task of beating even one Kanto Region team for a spot at the 100th Hakone in January, but with none achieving that goal they’re back for their own regional championship. It’s an interesting situation as some teams like Ritsumeikan University and Kantaiheiyo University just made the challenging Hakone qualifier - National University Ekiden double, and others like Kwansei Gakuin University opted to focus everything this season on a Tango win. And this time there’s actually a Kanto Region interloper in the form of powerhouse Aoyama Gakuin University, making a special one-time appearance at Tango without counting in the standings. Streaming is scheduled to start here at 8:20 a.m. Saturday local time.

The main race on Sunday is the legendary Ageo City Half Marathon in Saitama, the race that virtually all Hakone-bound teams except Aoyama Gakuin use to thin down the ranks of contenders on their roster for the final Hakone lineup. Hundreds of collegiate men run times that would win a lot of other half marathons, with the top two Japanese collegians earning an invitation to March’s United Airlines NYC Half in a program set up by JRN. The race has become a go-to in Asia for people looking to break a national record, and this year marathoner Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh will be taking a shot at the Mongolian women’s NR as a tune-up for December’s Taipei City Marathon. Streaming will be on the Teletama Youtube channel starting 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday. As always, JRN will be on-site in Ageo from the lead car.

Also Sunday at Tokyo’s National Stadium, hundreds of other collegians will be running a series of 10000 m time trials put on by Hakone organizers KGRR. Just a few years ago it was a big enough deal for someone to break 29 minutes that the KGRR offered scholarship money to anyone who did it at this meet, but it’s a sign of how much things have changed that the fastest men’s heat is set to go at 27:45 pace this time. There are also 3 women’s heats along with the 10 men’s heats, so expect fast times there too. Streaming starts above at 11:15 a.m. Sunday.

Less of an elite race, especially since the pandemic hit, the Kobe Marathon Sunday actually features a decent men’s field with current sub-2:10 runners Hamza Sahli (Morocco), Wilfred Kimitei (Kenya), Barnaba Kipkoech (Kenya) and Junichi Tsubouchi (Japan/Kurosaki Harima). The women’s field is weaker, with no internationals and only two Japanese women who have run under 2:40, late-career veterans Misato Horie (Sysmex) and Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita).

Osaka Marathon Elite Field

With 3 weeks to go the elite fields for the Feb. 22 Osaka Marathon are out. Given Osaka's history as the elite men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon the women's field is small, with only one entrant, Sinhala Kureshi , having broken 2:21 with her 2:19:53 in Hamburg last spring. Afera Godfay , Mare Dibaba and Rose Chelimo have all run 2:21 to 2:22 in recent races, and Esther Chemtai is an interesting debut off a 1:08:09 at last fall's Cardiff Half. Kaede Kawamura is the highest-level Japanese woman in the field with a 2:25:44 in Osaka 2 years ago. Last year's men's champ and CR breaker Yihunilign Adane is back, his main competition being fellow Ethiopians Bute Gemechu , Mulugeta Asefa Uma and South Africa's Elroy Gelant . 4th last year in 2:05:58, Kyohei Hosoya leads the front of the super deep Japanese field along with Ichitaka Yamashita , Kenta Sonota , Kiyoto Hirabayashi , Yuhei Urano , Yusuke Nishiyama and Daisuke Doi . But where Osaka excels is in deb...

Matsuo Breaks High School Half Marathon Record in 1:02:47

At the 48th Kanagawa Half Marathon at Yokohama's Nissin Olio Group's Isogo Plant, Jinya Ozaki (Teikyo Univ.) outran tough competition from National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University and Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University to take 1st in the men's race in 1:02:04. AGU's Sho Fukutomi was 2nd in 1:02:07, with Komazawa's Rinta Muta 3rd in 1:02:08. High schooler Nichika Maeda (Miura Gakuen H.S.) took the women's race in 1:16:30. But it was another high schooler who made headlines. 3rd-year Koki Matsuo (Shiritsu Funabashi H.S.) ran 1:02:47, taking 28 seconds off the fastest half marathon time ever run by a Japanese-born high school student. Last summer Matsuo ran the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in November he went under 14 minutes for 5000 m, his time of 13:55.07 putting him into the top class of high school running. At last fall's Chiba Prefectural High School Ekiden Matsuo set a new CR of 2...

Hirayama Strikes Again, Kabasawa Over Fuwa in Whiteout Conditions at National Corporate Half

With heavy snow hitting most of the country the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km in Yamaguchi almost dodged a bullet. Almost. It was -2˚ and windy at the start, but with sunny skies it wasn't too bad. The men went out 15 minutes ahead of the women on sub-61 pace with a massive pack trailing early leader Daisuke Shimojo (ND Software). At times snow was in the air, but even right up to the end the sun was still breaking through. From a few km out a lead trio coalesced of last year's winner Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx), Kenyan Boniface Mulwa (ND Software) and Taiga Hirayama (Konica Minolta), CR-breaking winner at the Osaka Half Marathon 2 weeks ago. Ichiyama made a break for it with 500 m to go, but on the track at the end Muluwa reeled him back it. Entering the home straight Hirayama threw down and passed them both, bettering his Osaka time by 6 seconds to win in 1:00:44. Muluwa was next in 1:00:45, with Ichiyama, in training for the Tokyo Marathon in 3 weeks, 3rd in...

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