National University Women's Half Marathon, The TEN, United Airlines NYC Half and More

National University Women's Half Marathon, The TEN, United Airlines NYC Half and More - Weekend Preview

There are a lot of Japanese athletes racing overseas this weekend, but at home the main action is the National University Women's Half Marathon Sunday in Matsue. Last year's runner-up Rio Einaga of Osaka Gakuin University and 3rd and 5th-placers Saki Harada and Nanase Tanimoto from six-time national champion Meijo University lead the entry list, with their top competition including Saki Arai of Daito Bunka University, the anchor stage winner at December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national championship, Yuiri Ogata, Sakurako Yanai and Momoko Shimada from Mt. Fuji runner-up team Nittai University, and Yui Yoshii, Momona Yotsumoto and Mariya Noda from 3rd-place team Daito Bunka University. Complete entry list here.

Overseas, the biggest block of Japanese athletes will be at Sound Running's The TEN in California. With a best of 31:34.39 Mikuni Yada (Edion) is the only Japanese woman in the meet, running the 10000 m Paris section. Hibiki Obara (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) is in the men's 1500 m, and the men's 10000 m Early and Tracktown sections have Itta Tameike (Chuo Univ.), Takato Suzuki (SGH), Shu Hasegawa (Kao) and Shotaro Ishihara (Tokai Univ.). But the men's 10000 m Paris section is the main event from the Japanese point of view, with 7 men on the entry list of 40:

Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) - 27:09.80 - NR
Tomoki Ota (Toyota) - 27:12.53 - all-time JPN #2
Tatsuhiko Ito (Honda) - 27:25.73 - all-time JPN #5
Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) - 27:28.50 - U20 AR, all-time JPN #8
Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) - 27:28.92 - all-time JPN #9
Mebuki Suzuki (Komazawa Univ.) - 27:30.69
Kotaro Shinohara (Komazawa Univ.) - 27:38.66

Hopes are high that the race will see Japan's first sub-27. Complete entry lists here. Streaming here.

In New York, three Japanese men are in the United Airlines NYC Half. 2024 national cross-country champ Tomonori Yamaguchi (Waseda Univ.) and Rei Matsunaga (Hosei Univ.) are running as part of JRN's collegiate development collaboration project between November's Ageo City Half Marathon and the United Airline NYC Half. Yamaguchi's Waseda teammate Taishi Ito is also running, all three of them holding sub-62 bests. Top entries in the field include 58:07 man Abel Kipchumba, the legend Kenenisa Bekele, and U.S. Olympic marathon trials runner-up Clayton Young. Complete entry lists here. Streaming here.

Lastly, 2:28:51 marathoner Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Yamaguchi) is the lone Japanese athlete lining up at the Sands China Macao International 10K in Macau. Kaneshige has a track 10000 m best of 32:41.46 and hopes to take a shot at the event's course record of 35:26.

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...

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