by Brett Larner The worldwide marathon season came to a close for the year with the Dec. 19 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon . Coming off a top-10 finish at September's Berlin Marathon, Mongolian ace Serod Bat-Ochir took his first win in three straight Hofu appearances. Bat-Ochir sat in a large pack behind pacemaker Dishon Karukwa (Kenya/Team Aisan Kogyo) through the early stages of the race until it whittled down to three by 30 km. Pushing ahead, he dropped Kenyan debutant Samuel Ganga (Team Mazda) and by 35 km had a three-second gap on Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC). From there it was smooth sailing all the way to the finish. Ganga dropped out before 40 km, leaving Ito free in 2nd and challenged only by teammate Hiroyuki Kamiguchi (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), who ran a patient race to close strongly and take 3rd. Although Hofu has regularly had second-tier women, its official women's division only opened last year. Hiroko Yoshitomi (Saga T&F Assoc.) put pressure on past winners His...
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