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).

Arao Becomes 1st Man in 40 Years to Score Back-to-Back Ome Road Race Wins

30 km is an under-appreciated distance, and both of Japan's big races at that distance happened Sunday. At the Ome Road Race in western Tokyo's mountains, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao (ND Software) became the first man since the great Kunimitsu Ito in 1985-1986 to win back-to-back years. Arao, who finished 39th of 40 on his leg at the New Year Ekiden last month, stayed in the pack through 20 km before going on the attack, putting over a minute on New Year Ekiden Sixth Stage CR breaker Yudai Shimazu (GMO). Sub-1:31 winning times are rare on the tough and hilly Ome course, but Arao's 1:30:54 almost equaled his 1:30:50 from last year, making him the first Japanese man ever to do it twice and second only to CR holder Ezekiel Cheboitibin . Next up Arao races the Tokyo Marathon, where he is targeting sub-2:06. Shimazu was 2nd in 1:31:58 and Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon) 3rd in 1:32:07. Cheboitibin was only 9th, running almost 8 minutes off his CR in 1:36:42. Shi...

Nagoya Women's Marathon Elite Field

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...

Osaka Marathon Preview

The Osaka Marathon is Sunday, one of Japan's biggest mass-participation races and the next stop on the calendar for its elite marathoners hoping to qualify for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials in the fall of 2027. Last year it snowed mid-race, but this year is looking warmer than ideal given the season, with sunny skies, almost no wind, and temps forecast to be 11˚ at the start and rising to 19˚ by the time the winners are finishing. NHK is broadcasting Osaka with a heavy emphasis on the men's race, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it from overseas. There's also official streaming on Youtube starting at 8:30 a.m. local time, although it doesn't look like it's the same as what NHK will be showing. Given Osaka's history at the elite level as the continuation of the men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the women's field is small relative to the men's, just enough to tick World Athletics' label requirements and with almost no do...

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