Forums >Racing>Runners getting faster in Japan?
#artbydmcbride
http://runningmagazine.ca/ageo-city-half-marathon-2016/
tailwind?
short course?
performance enhancing sushi?
Runners run
It's the gushi.
Are we there, yet?
East Africans? Japan is very deep in the marathon and lots of Kenyans seem to train there. It will be interesting to see how deep the field is at the Fukuoka Marathon next week. To even qualify for entry you have to run 2:45. Going back 30-some years, remember the 1983 Boston Marathon had over 80 runners finish under 2:20.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
I also found this item posted on FB.
Japan has plenty of excellent races and some VERY deep fields. Fukuoka was mentioned above. There are others - Lake Biwa has a 2hr 30min qualifying time. Beppu-Oita used to be 2hr 50mins, now they let some slower runners enter - I did that a few years back when it was sub-3 to enter and route closes at 3hrs 30mins. The "good for age" entry to the Tokyo Marathon is quicker than any of the other marathon majors.
At half marathon, the Ageo City Half has been the world's most competitive for a few years - last year running 1 hr 10mins would get you 325th place. 1hr 5mins would be outside the top 100.
Feeling the growl again
Japanese runners train extremely hard, so their races post incredible finishing times. IMHO it shows what a relatively "average" running gene pool can do when people apply themselves.
But they don't have the genetics of the east Africans, so while they post fast amateur times and run fearlessly in international races, the Japanese just don't post a ton of internationally competitive times.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Linda
That was a very interesting article. Thanks for the post.
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Over 45 PR's: 5K - 21:21, Half - 1:39:49, Full - 3:33.47