Skip to main content

Rui Aoki Wins National University Men's Half Marathon - Weekend Results


Yuka Ando's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes.

And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon. Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin University were way out front of the rest of the field, Aoki pulling away for the win in 1:02:06 and Konda next in 1:02:19. Shinsaku Kudo of Waseda University out kicked Chuo University's Hinata Shirakawa for 3rd, 1:02:29 to 1:02:30, with winner Aoki's teammate Hikaru Tsujihara 5th in 1:02:37.

Although Aoki's winning time was relatively conservative, depth was like always:

sub-1:03 - 11
sub-1:04 - 69
sub-1:05 - 144
sub-1:06 - 242
sub-1:07 - 335
sub-1:08 - 436
sub-1:09 - 510
sub-1:10 - 594

National University Men's Half Marathon

Tachikawa, Tokyo, 10 March 2024

1. Rui Aoki (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:06
2. Hiro Konda (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:19
3. Shinsaku Kudo (Waseda Univ.) - 1:02:29
4. Hinata Shirakawa (Chuo Univ.) - 1:02:30
5. Hikaru Tsujihara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:37
6. Shota Shiode (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:46
7. Eiki Kogure (Soka Univ.) - 1:02:48
8. Yu Fukahori (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 1:02:50
9. Yosuke Harada (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 1:02:58
10. Naoyuki Ikoma (Kokushikan Univ.) - 1:02:58
11. Takumu Kudo (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:50
12. Teruki Shimada (Teikyo Univ.) - 1:03:00
13. Hiroki Yamanaka (Teikyo Univ.) - 1:03:02
14. Goki Takayama (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:03
15. Kaisei Yasuhara (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:03:04
16. Haruki Abe (Chuo Univ.) - 1:03:04
17. Kosei Shiraishi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:05
18. Kenshin Ebisawa (Juntendo Univ.) - 1:03:08
19. Kosei Aoki (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:09
20. Ryo Yoshida (Soka Univ.) - 1:03:12
21. Yujiro Kanno (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) - 1:03:13
22. Shun Inami (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 1:03:15
23. Riku Hirota (Teikyo Univ.) - 1:03:17
24. Akito Noda (Hosei Univ.) - 1:03:17
25. Ryusei Kawachi (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) - 1:03:18
-----
50. Taisei Kobayashi (Teikyo Univ.) - 1:03:38
75. Sora Saito (Soka Univ.) - 1:04:12
100. Hideyoshi Haseda (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:31
125. Rintaro Motoyama (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:48
150. Shigeharu Takahashi (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) - 1:05:03
175. Shion Nishinaka (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) - 1:05:25
200. Hiroto Sakamoto (Surugadai Univ.) - 1:05:38
225. Takumi Tominaga (Takushoku Univ.) - 1:05:52
250. Hikaru Tomomura (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 1:06:03
300. Ren Waseda (Surugadai Univ.) - 1:06:39
350. Shuta Arai (Asia Univ.) - 1:07:10
400. Takumi Sakakibara (Reitaku Univ.) - 1:07:37
450. Makoto Muroi (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 1:08:12
500. Kido Morimoto (Juntendo Univ.) - 1:08:55
550. Takuma Yoshida (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) - 1:09:29
594. Shintaro Kinoshita (Shinshu Univ.) - 1:09:59

© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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

Saku Chosei High School's Hamaguchi Runs 13:31.62 at Nittai

2023 National High School Ekiden champion Saku Chosei H.S. was out in force Sunday in the 5000 m fast heats at the 317th Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama. 3rd-year Yamato Hamaguchi ran 13:31.62, the 4th-fastest time ever by a Japanese-born high schooler, and 3rd-year Tetsu Sasaki went under 14 minutes for the first time with an excellent 13:40.02. The race took place as light rain fell. Hamaguchi and Sasaki ran alongside African university and corporate league runners. From the start they were conservative, staying in the pack as the race went along. With splits of 2:42 and 1000 m and 8:11 at 3000 m the high school record of 13:22.99 set 2 years ago by Saku Chosei alum Hiroto Yoshioka was out of reach, but right til the last sprint Hamaguchi stayed in contact with the lead. Hamaguchi took almost 7 seconds off his 13:38.40 PB from last year, with Sasaki rewriting his 14:03.51 best by nearly 24 seconds. Both beat Yamanashi Gakuin H.S. 2nd-year Felix Muthiani , who ran

New Year Ekiden Field is Set

We're deep into championship ekiden season. Over the last two weekends the six regions making up the corporate leagues held their qualifying races for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. The New Year Ekiden is one of the only national-level championship ekidens that doesn't give its podium finishers auto-qualifying spots for the next year, meaning every team has to run the regional races every November. It's not hard to see how that eats into the fall marathon season and how doing it the same way they do for all the other big ekidens, including the corporate women's national championships later this month, and having the top teams auto-qualify, would open up the fall schedule and improve Japan's performances in men's marathoning. But it is what it is right now. In place of an auto-qualifying spot for podium finishers, the national corporate federation redistributes the wealth of qualifying slots available in each region based