Course Records at Kasumigaura and Tokushima Marathons – by Brett Larner – Japan Running News

Two of the three quality Japanese marathons this weekend saw their course records fall, with the third featuring an Eastern European sweep.  At the Nagano Marathon, cross-country great Serhiy Lebid (Ukraine) staged a head-to-head battle with Japan-based Mongolian national record holder Ser-od Bat-Ochir (Team NTN), only pulling away in the final two km to get the win in 2:13:56 to Bat-Ochir's 2:14:04. 2:11 man Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) was 3rd in 2:15:20.  

In the women's race Japanese hopeful Rika Shintaku (Team Shimamura) tried to match Russian Alina Prokopeva but fell short.  Prokopeva pushed on steadily at 2:30 pace with only Shintaku for company before pulling away early in the second half for the win in 2:30:56.  Shintaku faded badly to 2:36:02, nearly run down by Shoko Shimizu (Team Aichi Denki) who took 3rd in 2:37:21 off a far more conservative first half.

 
At the Tokushima Marathon the iconoclastic Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) came up just shy of Ito's time but still took nearly 7 minutes off the course record to win in 2:15:25.  Running completely solo he set off at a planned 2:12 pace but was forced to take a 3-minute toilet break near 27 km.  Frustrated at the lost time, he recorded one of the fastest closing splits of his career, 6:39 from 40 km to the finish, to win by 8 minutes.  

Of his four marathons so far this year this was his third course record, a final tuneup for the May 4 Hamburg Marathon where he hopes to get his fastest time of the season, one well below the 2:10:14 course record he set at February's Kumamoto-jo Marathon.  Tokushima women's winner Chika Tawara (Fukuoka T&F Assoc.) also improved the course record by a wide margin, taking nearly 8 minutes off the old record with a new mark of 2:45:50.

 
The fastest time of the weekend by a Japanese man came unexpectedly at the Kasumigaura Marathon in Ibaraki prefecture northeast of Tokyo, where Atsushi Hasegawa (Team Subaru) ran a PB 2:14:20 to take over 3 minutes off the race's 12-year-old record, front-running the race from the start to get there.  Women's winner Yumi Sato (Tsuruoka T&F Assoc.) ran a more conservative 2:53:29 for the win, well off Kasumigaura's 2:42:17 women's course record.  In the accompanying ten-miler, sub-2:10 marathoner Masashi Hayashi (Team Yakult) had a narrow win over Hakone Ekiden runner Toshinori Watanabe (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) 48:47 to 48:52, in one of the deepest editions in the race's history.  Ruka Nakamura (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) took the women's division in 56:53.

16th Nagano Marathon
Nagano, 4/20/14
click here for complete results

Men
1. Serhiy Lebid (Ukraine) – 2:13:56
2. Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Team NTN) – 2:14:04
3. Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) – 2:15:20
4. Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) – 2:15:50
5. Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) – 2:16:36

Women
1. Alina Prokopeva (Russia) – 2:30:56
2. Rika Shintaku (Team Shimamura) – 2:36:02
3. Shoko Shimizu (Team Aichi Denki) – 2:37:21
4. Risa Takemura (Team Kyudenko) – 2:37:43
5. Yumiko Kinoshita (Second Wind AC) – 2:39:38 – PB

24th Kasumigaura Marathon
Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, 4/20/14
complete results coming shortly

Men's Marathon
1. Atsushi Hasegawa (Team Subaru) – 2:14:20 – CR, PB

Women's Marathon
1. Yumi Sato (Tsuruoka T&F Assoc.) – 2:53:29

Men's 10 Miles
1. Masashi Hayashi (Team Yakult) – 48:47
2. Toshinori Watanabe (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) – 48:52
3. Yuji Serunarudo (Soka Univ.) – 49:04
4. Takuya Nishizawa (Juntendo Univ.) – 49:12
5. Harutomo Kawano (Tokyo Police Dep't) – 49:15

Women's 10 Miles
1. Ruka Nakamura (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) – 56:53

6th Tokushima Marathon 
Tokushima, 4/20/14
complete results coming shortly

Men
1. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) – 2:15:25 – CR

(c) 2014 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

by Brett Larner – Japan Running News