February 28, 2021. The day the Japanese broke the marathon. 40 - YES 40 - Japanese men just broke 2:10 at Lake Biwa

Full results with splits here.

Top 50 and their former PB's (if they have an x they didn't PB)

1 Kengo Suzuki 2:04:56 (2:10:21)

2 Hidekazu Hijikata 2:06:26 (2:09:50)

3 Kyohei Hosoya 2:06:35 (2:28:47)

4 Hiroto Inoue 2:06:47 (2:06:54)

5 Yusuke Ogura 2:06:51 (2:07:23)

6 Shuho Dairokuno 2:07:12 (2:11:19)

7 Simon Kariuki (KEN) 2:07:18 (2:07:56)

8 Masato Kikuchi 2:07:20 (2:07:31)

9 Kento Kikutani 2:07:26 (2:09:07)

10 Yuki Kawauchi 2:07:27 (2:08:14)

11 Kazuki Muramoto 2:07:36 (2:17:16)

12 Masaru Aoki 2:07:40 (2:13:00)

13 Tsubasa Ichiyama 2:07:41 (2:12:04)

14 Masaki Sakuda 2:07:42 (Debut, fastest ever Japanese debut)

15 Atsumi Ashiwa 2:07:54 (Debut)

16 Yuta Shimoda 2:08:00 x

17 Ryu Takaku 2:08:05 x

18 Ichitaka Yamasita 2:08:10 (Debut)

19 Kenya Sonota 2:08:11 (2:09:50)

20 Kenta Uchida 2:08:12 (2:15:39)

21 Daisuke Doi 2:08:13 (Debut)

22 Kento Otsu 2:08:15 (2:10:01)

23 Daisuke Hosomori 2:08:28 (2:12:24)

24 Hiroto Fujimagari 2:08:30 (2:12:24)

25 Junichi Tsubouchi 2:08:35 (2:10:19)

26 Yuta Koyama 2:08:46 (2:16:27)

27 Keisuke Hayashi 2:08:52 (2:12:31)

28 Kazuma Kubo 2:08:53 (Debut)

29 Yuki Matsumura 2:09:01 (2:25:01)

30 Takumi Kiyotani 2:09:13 (2:11:24)

31 Madoka Tanihara 2:09:15 (2:11:39)

32 Naoki Okamoto 2:09:25 x

33 Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (MGL) 2:09:26 x

34 Kei Katanishi 2:09:27 (Debut)

35 Takuya Noguchi 2:09:28 x

36 Shoya Okuno 2:09:30 x

37 Yuki Takamiya 2:09:30 (2:10:57)

38 Takahiro Nakamura 2:09:40 (2:14:25)

39 Taku Fujimoto 2:09:42 x

40 Takamitsu Hashimoto 2:09:43 (2:13:54)

41 Kyoya Tsujino 2:09:48 (2:12:04)

42 Hisanori Kitajima 2:09:54 x

43 Keisuke Tanaka 2:10:07 (2:12:41)

44 Yohei Suzuki 2:10:11 (2:12:18)

45 Shogo Kanezane 2:10:17 (2:10:19)

46 Akira Tomiyasu 2:10:29 (DNF his only other marathon attempt)

47 Ryota Komori 2:10:33 (2:12:18)

48 Tomoyasu Matsui 2:10:43 (2:12:31)

49 Yuki Nakamura 2:10:47 (2:11:58)

50 Tsubasa Hayakawa 2:10:49 (2:12:01)

http://www.lakebiwa-marathon.com/spotnews/result_76.pdf

Culmination of every one being motivated, massive pack of guys running at a high level so even if you fall off you usually aren't alone, the shoes of course, not a lot of races this season to tire guys out, the conditions being ideal, and Japan's university running being conducive to churning out men's marathoners. All of the top 50 except for the 38th placer I would consider to be pros (all are on sponsored teams except him, the 31st placer who is a cop with the Osaka Police but still trains and runs ekidens with that team, and Kawauchi, who is sponsored individually)

I just merged my thread with one started almost at the same time by juddy96 as he/she had some great stats. A few posts were lost so I'm trying to repost them.

Floriday boy wrote the following to judddy96:

Thanks for the side by sides! Nice to see Ser-od Bet-Ochir still running and putting up a 2:09

Rojo, does Brett Larner go into the shoes worn by those 40 Japanese runners, and/or will that data be provided by someone else? Will LRC investigate the matter?

I found it somewhat shocking that in the land of ASICS and Mizuno, practically all of their runners in the most recent Japan Ekiden were wearing Nike. Howabout you?

As Burnsy stated on your podcast, the 'SuperShoe formula' was revealed in the Nike 4% and VaporFly, and its been 3 or 4 years now, right? Does it not seem that ASCIS and Mizuno are taking a prolonged time to respond to the challenge?

The winner's splits are amazing.

Osaka's NR was 2::05:29 coming in. After hitting halfway in 1:02:36, thigns were going fantastic thorugh 30k. But from 30 to 35k, they slowed and ran their first 5k split over 15:00 - 15:02 and were on just 2:05:24 pace.

But from 35k to 40k, he ran 14:39 (beating the 2nd place guy by nearly a minute). Then for the final 2.195 he went WAY faster. He ran that in 6:16 which is 14:16.5 pace

rojo wrote:

The winner's splits are amazing.

Osaka's NR was 2::05:29 coming in. After hitting halfway in 1:02:36, thigns were going fantastic thorugh 30k. But from 30 to 35k, they slowed and ran their first 5k split over 15:00 - 15:02 and were on just 2:05:24 pace.

But from 35k to 40k, he ran 14:39 (beating the 2nd place guy by nearly a minute). Then for the final 2.195 he went WAY faster. He ran that in 6:16 which is 14:16.5 pace

Man I wish you’d stick to running posts instead of political stuff, pretending to be a registered Democrat.

Great information, thank you.

Shoes?

How much actual time difference to these make? Maybe when the Top Americans like Rupp, run in them Rupp will go 2:02 or 2:03 and 15-20 will go under 2:09 which Is NOT depth like Japan has, but we never had Japan's depth in the Marathon, but often our best couple of runners could beat theirs, Hopefully Rupp runs Hamburg and see what he can do in a time trial type race with the new shoes, I mean he ran 2:06.07 in the inferior old shoes lets see how he does with the super shoes, we had 6 no names under 2:10 a couple of Months ago.

douglas burke wrote:

I mean he ran 2:06.07 in the inferior old shoes lets see how he does with the super shoes,...

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? You have been called out in the past on that non-sense, but you keep repeating it.

Rupp's 2:06 was in 2018! He already had access to the new SuperShoes by then!

hr measurement wrote:

douglas burke wrote:

I mean he ran 2:06.07 in the inferior old shoes lets see how he does with the super shoes,...

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? You have been called out in the past on that non-sense, but you keep repeating it.

Rupp's 2:06 was in 2018! He already had access to the new SuperShoes by then!

C'mon 'douglas burke', you are entitled to respond with something like, "Yes, but Rupp was not wearing the new AlphaFlys, as worn by Suzuki today:

Pretty incredible!

but galen is going to win the olympics

Yakults are delicious.

アメリカ人は遅々と走りすぎるんだな〜

Women's results

Lake Biwa is a men's only race. Nagoya Women's Marathon is on March 14th though.

Ur move @TheRuppster

Ig ur move too still @MgCentro

105 guys (minus the pacers) were on sub 2:10 pace at halfway. 20 at 62xx, 65 at 63xx, and 20 at 64xx.

Short course?