Skip to main content

Jeilan 27:09.02 at Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami Meet

by Brett Larner

The first meet of the 2011 Hokuren Distance Challenge series took place June 19 in Kitami, Hokkaido. With cooler than usual temperatures 2006 world 10000 m junior champion and 2008 world junior XC champion Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda) delivered the biggest result of the evening, a solo 27:09.02 nearly a minute ahead of runner-up Alex Mwangi (Kenya/Team YKK). Jeilan's time was the third-fastest of the year by an Ethiopian, putting him into consideration for the Ethiopian team for August's Daegu World Championships. In 5th, third-year Yuki Maeda (Waseda Univ.), whose excellent run on the first day of this year's Hakone Ekiden was instrumental in keeping Waseda in contention for the win, became the latest Waseda runner to break 29 minutes as he clocked a PB of 28:54.34. Ten men on the roster of Waseda's 2010-2011 squad held PBs under 29 minutes.

In the women's 5000 m, 2011 East Japan Corporate T&F 10000 m champion Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) ran a strong 15:32.13, the third-best so far this year by a Japanese woman. The meet's other most notable result came in the men's 1500 m A-heat, where Kenyan Edward Waweru (Team NTN) ran a PB of 3:38.90, the fastest time of the year so far on Japanese soil.

The Hokuren Distance Challenge continues June 22 in Abashiri, Hokkaido.

2011 Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami Meet
Kitami, Hokkaido, 6/19/11
Men's 10000 m
1. Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda) - 27:09.02
2. Alex Mwangi (Kenya/Team YKK) - 28:01.50
3. Assefa Fekele (Ethiopia/Team Kanebo) - 28:32.86
4. Takehiro Arakawa (Team Asahi Kasei) - 28:52.60
5. Yuki Maeda (Waseda Univ.) - 28:54.34
6. Kazuki Onishi (Team Kanebo) - 28:55.90
7. Ryotaro Nitta (Team Konica Minolta) - 28:58.31
8. Naoto Yoneda (Team Konica Minolta) - 29:07.93
9. Fumihiro Maruyama (Team Asahi Kasei) - 29:09.11
10. Shota Hiraga (Waseda Univ.) - 29:09.75

Women's 5000 m
1. Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) - 15:32.13
2. Misako Onishi (Team Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:46.64
3. Risa Kikuchi (Team Hitachi) - 15:48.61
4. Chieko Kido (Canon AC Kyushu) - 15:58.42
5. Korei Omata (Team Sekisui Kagaku) - 16:03.06
6. Eri Watanabe (Team Panasonic) - 16:06.54
7. Haruka Igarashi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) - 16:08.62
8. Miku Yamamoto (Team Sekisui Kagaku) - 16:09.31
9. Risa Nakamura (Team Hitachi) - 16:09.61
10. Yuri Umemura (Team Panasonic) - 16:10.29

Men's 3000 m
1. Kosuke Murasashi (Team YKK) - 8:13.89
2. Wataru Yamaguchi (Team Hitachi Cable) - 8:16.24
3. Makoto Hasegawa (Team Hitachi Cable) - 8:17.51

Women's 3000 m
1. Rose Maranga (Kenya/Team Toto) - 9:14.17
2. Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) - 9:16.42
3. Kazumi Hashimoto (Team Hokuren) - 9:27.42

Men's 1500 m A-Heat
1. Edward Waweru (Kenya/Team NTN) - 3:38.90
2. Sang-Min Sin (Korea) - 3:42.38
3. Kazunari Murakami (Team Fujitsu) - 3:43.70

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis