Official 2026 Hakone Ekiden Live Discussion Thread + Free link to "the best sports broadcast in the world"

If you have a VPN, here is a free live broadcast.

ntv.co.jp

箱根駅伝 番組公式サイト｜日本テレビ

日本テレビ「箱根駅伝」公式サイトです。ダイジェスト映像や名シーン・監督対談などの動画・記事コンテンツを発信しています。

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Japan Running News' Brett Larner recently called NTV's live broadcast as "the best sports broadcast in the world"

ntv.co.jp

箱根駅伝 番組公式サイト｜日本テレビ

日本テレビ「箱根駅伝」公式サイトです。ダイジェスト映像や名シーン・監督対談などの動画・記事コンテンツを発信しています。

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Need a VPN? Use the vpn we use go to letsrun.com/vpn

Asahi kuroda OMG, what a run. Utterly destroyed the previous stage record

I don't even know how to comprehend what I just saw. Dude runs a 1:07 half marathon, on a course that gains 2700+ feet. JK's rule of thumb (probably conservative for such extreme grades) would make this a 57-minute flat equivalent performance. Minetti would put it at 55 minutes!

The competitive context is also insane. Defending champs start the race closer to last place than first and somehow get into the lead by the halfway point.

Well there is the downhill time which is ~57 mins... so if you take the difference, it seems like 5 minutes or so would be the handicap for the section.

I love watching distance racing events in Japan, as well as Canada. The on-screen details, the continuous coverage and the lack of "endearing" personal stories and spectator garbage, the dancing costumed volunteer water tables, etc. (sheesh). And the enthusiastic spectators along the route. You have to admit that it certainly lends itself to the quality of Japanese distance runners.

JK's conversion is 1.8s for every 10ft of incline and 1.4/10ft of decline so that's 8:48 for 2867ft of gain minus a little bit for the downhill. That would put him around 59 flat or 58 high for 20.8km which is 59 high for 21.1km by my rough calculation.

You don't get back doing down what you lose going up, especially when the downhills are so insanely steep that you're braking half the time. Also, you can't really compare Leg 5 talent to Leg 6 talent. The downhill specialists who run leg 6 are often the weakest runners (in terms of aerobic ceiling) who have just focused on prepping their legs for the unique demands of running down a 7% grade for the better part of an hour.

If the handicap were only 5 minutes, then the second fastest run in history on the leg would be equivalent to a 1:04...which is slower than the average half marathon PR for every single team entered in the event. Kuroda put over two minutes into a 60-flat guy who specializes in going uphill.

I'm pretty sure it's 2.4 for every 10 up and 1.8 for every 10 down: https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/02/mile-by-mile-analysis-of-how-the-hills-will-impact-the-2020-us-olympic-marathon-trials/#google_vignette.

It was a really impressive run, but it wasn't quite the half-marathon distance, was it? I watched the replay on YouTube without understanding Japanese, but the graphic on the screen indicated the stage distance as 20.9 km. Still a great time on a really tough course.

You're right, could have sworn my numbers are what had been posted on the boards over the years but that is not the case. However I also see 1.74 seconds per 10 feet of gain quoted a few places including this document of JK's posts that Northern Star put together.

https://runningscience.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-Updated-Training-Wisdom-of-John-Kellogg-v2.1.pdf

Ok. I spoke to John today. He said that normal 10 foot elevation gain slows you buy 2.52 seconds. Each 10 foot drop would help you gain 1.8 seconds.

Based on that, we are talking about a massive slowdown. I don't know the exact elevation chart for the current 5th leg. I saw it was 20.8 km which would be 51 seconds short of a half marathon according to John.

However, the only elevation chart I could find was from 10+ years ago when the leg was 23.4 km. Does anyone have an actual chart for this year's race?

The old leg rose some 874m (that's a crazy 2867 feet) before finishing at around 720m (2362 feet). Using that, I calculated the uphill would slow you down by a massive 722.6 seconds (that's 11:02). The downhill would help you by 90.9 seconds for a net slowdown of 631.6 seconds (so 10:31.6).

If you just ignored the downhill and looked at a roughly 720m rise, you get a slowdown of 9:55.

THe run by Asahi Kuroda today was legendary. The previous course record was set last year by Hiroki Wakabayashi at 69:11. That guy is a 2:06:07 marathoner. Kuroda beat that time by almost 2 full minutes, running 67:11. If you add 51 seconds to that to get to 21.1, you get 68:02.

If the elevatiion change was the same as it was 10 years ago, you'd need to subtract 10-10:30 so you'd say he ran the equivalent of something like 57:30-58:00. That doesn't seem that crazy to me. I mean if you are beating the course record set by 2:06 flat marathoner by 2 minutes, that seems doable. Also, the third-place finisher on the leg whom he ran down and beat by 2:35, Shinsaku Kudo, has a 60:06 half pb.

It was one of the greatest run in the history of the earth by a non-African born male. Incredible.

I talked about it at length in the Friday 15 SC podcast that we recorded today.

Here is Brett Larner's recap:

japanrunningnews.blogspot.com

Kuroda Conquers the Mountain to Give Aoyama Gakuin the Hakone Ekiden Day One CR Again

After a wild New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships yesterday that saw new CR on 6 of the race's 7 stages and a 7-second mi...

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I never even heard of this thing before. It would be interesting to know how many runners are from Japan as they are not dominant on the world stage! Thank you for covering it.

I found some video:

Amazing run!

Didn't coach Dahl once have a top 10 fastest time on that mountain leg?

🙄🤦

874 meters is the peak, and the climb starts at 30 meters.

I'm not sure why you need the non-African caveat. This is one of the greatest distance running performances in human history, period.

great job by Asahi Kuroda! He is 21 years old, the same age as Rocky Hansen. Could this young man win an Olympic marathon medal in 2028?

I assume he won't be running the world cross country championships next weekend. That's too bad.

Really, you don't like watching wheelchair races?

Is the overall incline of 2700 feet elevation gain for that distance equivalent to 4% on the treadmill? I know there's other factors like wind resistance, surface, etc., but in terms of gradient?

i love this shi**t.

many thanks to roho letsrun.