Today's Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon was in one of the few places in the country not hit by heavy snow, but even though it was windier than ideal with a strong tailwind 1st half and headwind 2nd half people ran well. After a 1:04:31 fast half the men dropped as slow as 16:03 into the wind between 25 and 30 km, but when the pacers dropped a group of 6 broke free from the pack and got the race back on track with a 15:25 split through 35 km. Even though he only had a 2:15:11 PB Kazuto Kawabata was the only one who could sustain that over the next 5 km, and he kept rolling on to win in a new PB of 2:10:27. Amateur Shusei Ohashi dropped a 2:11:01 PB for 2nd, just holding off the debuting Shoki Yamaguchi from Soka University who was 3rd in 2:11:02. 6 of the top 10 ran PBs, the other 4 all running the marathon for the first time and everyone under 2:12:30. Back in 13th, the talented Kenta Murayama from the local Asahi Kasei corporate tea...
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