The National Sports Festival was the main thing happening this weekend, but with ekiden season just kicking off there were track time trial meets everywhere as teams shift focus from summer mileage to sharpening speed. Haruki Niizuma (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) made news with a 13:35.33 win in the junior men's 5000 m Friday at the National Sports Festival, but at Sunday's Nittai University Time Trials meet, held at Keio University this time because of construction work at Nittai, Yota Mashiko (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) beat Niizuma's time with a 13:34.84 PB.
Mashiko ran in an all-Kenyan lead group and was right there with Victor Kipkirui (Chudenko) and Stephen Muthini (Soka Univ.) til the end, Kipkirui kicking away in the last 100 m to win in 13:33.46 and Muthini next in 13:34.47. Mashiko's time was the best this year by a Japanese-born high schooler, and with Niizuma and Sei Yoshida (Tokai Sapporo H.S.), 13:35.14 in July, right there it looks like it's going to be a great high school boys' ekiden season.
Spanning Saturday and Sunday, the Chubu Corporate Track and Field Championships' biggest race was the men's 10000 m, where Kelvin Kiplagat (Aisan Kogyo) ran 27:46.68 to lead Simon Muthio Saidimu (Chuo Hatsujo) and James Muoki (Sekino Kosan) under 28 minutes. Komazawa University grad Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) had the fastest Japanese time of the weekend at 28:16.47 for 6th.
The Setagaya Time Trials held in parallel with Chugoku in Tokyo Saturday saw Brian Kiptoo (Reitaku Univ.) take the 10000 m fast heat in 28:01.74, another former Komazawa member Chikara Yamano (Kraftia) running 28:18.70 for 3rd. Running his first race since his breakthrough 6th-place finish at the Sydney Marathon on Aug. 31, Masato Arao (ND Software) was 5th in the B-heat in 28:51.33, just over a second off his PB with his teammate Koichi Shoji winning in 28:47.24. Komazawa's Shintaro Kudo won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:42.22.
Things were pretty low-key in Hiroshima at Saturday's Chugoku Corporate Time Trials meet. The most notable result was a 28:33.55 win in the 10000 m fast heat by Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku), following up his 2:06:06 marathon PB in Osaka in February and 13:25.97 best for 5000 m in June. Even lower-key was Sunday's Kansai Distance Challenge in Nara, where the top performance was probably Hiroki Yamanaka's 13:55.01 win in the 5000 m A-heat. Yamanashi and his Osaka Gas teammates Kento Nishi and Masahiro Mekata took the top 3 spots and were separated by less than a second.
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