by Brett Larner With temperatures in the high-mid teens on the first truly warm day of the year Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu), Japan's top woman at the London Olympics, became the first athlete male or female to break the Japanese Federation's tough sub-2:08 and sub-2:24 standards for the Moscow World Championships, blasting a PB of almost exactly 3 minutes to win the Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:23:34. After a passable comeback from over 4 years of injury in Nagoya last year, national record holder and Athens Olympics marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) brought much of the fury, refusing to settle for less as she ran even with the pacers and pushed them to go ahead of the scheduled 3:24/km target pace after an on-point 33:56 first 10 km. A 3:17 split between 13 and 14 km took them to 15 km in 50:48 and dropped a handful of competitors from the pack including debuting Ome 30 km winner Asami Kato (Team Panasonic). At halfway the lead g...
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