Omare and Hayashida Win Deepest-Ever National Corporate Half Marathon, Goshima Breaks Women-Only NR – Brett Larner – Japan Running News

Kenyan Dolphine Nyaboke Omare (U.S.E.) caught up shortly after that and really got things moving, taking them through 10 km in 32:33 and 15 km in 48:29. That was too much for Goshima, who dropped 9 seconds behind by 15 km, and a bit later for Ando. Omare hammered on to go through 20 km in 1:04:19 en route to a 1:07:56 course record for the win, 15 seconds under the old record set by Yukiko Akaba in 2008.

Goshima caught Ando at 20 km and pushed on to break Akaba’s 1:08:11 women-only NR by 8 seconds in 1:08:03, going 10 seconds faster than Omare after 20 km with a 3:08 closing km. Ando just missed also breaking Akaba’s mark, taking 3rd in 1:08:13, a solid tune-up for next month’s Nagoya Women’s Marathon. Sakiho Tsutsui (Yamada Holdings) was the only other woman under 70 minutes, taking 4th in 1:09:54. National record holder Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) ran at target Tokyo Marathon pace on track for mid-69 but faded rapidly late in the race, covering the last km in 3:23 and finishing 6th in 1:10:12.

The women’s 10 km started off like a JV race before going wild, with the first 5 km going out in only 17:26 and Moe Shimizu (Wacoal) clocking a massive negative split 16:01 second half to win in 33:28 vs. the 32:09 CR set by Yui Fukuda in 2018. Only ten women cleared 34 minutes and there was no men’s race, leaving the 10 km distance one of the most puzzlingly underexploited in the Japanese system.

But the shinkansen effect was in full effect in the men’s half marathon. It was massive, with 15 runners under 61 minutes, all Japanese, and world record-setting counts of 56 under 62 minutes, 110 under 63, 143 under 64, and 161 under 65. Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima), Yuki Muta (Hitachi Butsuryu) and 20-year-old Hiroto Hayashida (Mitsubishi Juko) took it out in 14:29 for the first 5 km, 1:01:07 pace, with a lead pack of 138 in tow, and pure momentum took it from there.

2020 winner and 2021 Fukuoka International Marathon runner-up James Gitahi Rungaru (Chuo Hatsujo), Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Track Tokyo), last year’s top Japanese man Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) and Tamura led at 10km in 28:50, 1:00:50 pace, with the lead pack down to 51. Tamura, Hayashida, and three others including Toyo University’s Kazuki Matsuyama were up front at 15 km in 43:14, 1:00:48 pace with the pack down to 23.

21-year-old Chikara Yamano (Komazawa Univ.), one of ten university runners given permission to run the Corporate Championships after last week’s Marugame Half Marathon was canceled on short notice, was the first one to make a break for it, opening a 2-second lead over Tamura, Hayashida, Matsuyama and four others just before 20 km. But the more experienced corporate leaguers timed their responses perfectly, Hayashida, Ken Nakayama (Honda) and Tamura all overtaking Yamano on the back straight of the track finish to go 1-2-3 in a shared 1:00:38 that put them at all-time Japanese #8. Yamano was 4th in 1:00:40, the fastest-ever by a Japanese-born collegiate runner.

The next 11 all broke 61, ranging from 19-year-old Ayumu Yamamoto (Koku Gakuin Univ.) in a 1:00:43 debut for 8th, to 35-year-old Yuki Sato (SG Holdings) in a PB 1:00:46 for 11th ahead of next month’s Tokyo Marathon, everyone finishing ahead of Sato aged 24 or younger. Tokyo Olympian Yuma Hattori (Toyota) continued his comeback from the heatstroke he suffered there, running a PB 1:01:24 for 30th.

And the numbers just kept on going up, with new best-time-for-place records down to at least the sub-65 level. Super-deep Japanese men’s half marathons are nothing new, the shinkansen effect, massive numbers of people going out as hard as they can by mutual consensus and riding the shared momentum, helping a lot of them make it to the end. But even by those standards, and even for the super shoe era, this was something else.

50th National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved