fukuoka marathon

I'm looking, but zatopek who lives in Osaka and myself intend to do infamous letsrun message board Japanese marathon coverage so stay tuned...

Yes it should be interesting. It is this Sunday, right?

Hey Zatopek! "Mokari-makka?" How's the weather in Osaka? It's around 20F in MN!

It should be on Sunday around 12:05 Japan time. Gotta have a few commercials before the start! I'll ask my friend in Japan (Japanese, that is) to see if there's a webcast as well. She did the commentary for Tokyo Women's Marathon (from the second motor car, not Masuda).

It is quite cold this morning. A 12:00 start is perfect. It will give me time to get a run in.

awesome. look forward to it.

Best bet would be some sort of satellite connection, or a flight to Japan. It's live on national TV.

yeah, but that would take money, which i don't have.

Mayeroff:

Are you still in Japan? Never got to get together with you in Tokyo. Did you come to the party after the race? How long at a time do you usually stay in Japan when you do go there? I'm hoping to get back there agian in time for Nagoya marathon... Osaka would be better (women's marathon that is...oh, sorry, it's supposed to be LADIE'S marathon, not women's...).

How about predicting the winner? The Japanese runners are trying to qualify for Osaka so they will be bringing it. Jaouad Gharib is also in the field. And of course, Haile. I'll take Tsuyoshi Ogata.

I'd say Ogata and Fujita battling it out with Geb retiring somewhere around 25k.

Detailed Local Fukuoaka Forecast

Today (Saturday): A mix of clouds and sun. High 52F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy skies. Low 42F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow: Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 48F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow night: Mostly clear skies. Low near 40F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.

Monday: Mainly sunny. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the low 40s.

I predict that Geb will sit behind the leaders until that last 3k then kickit in for the win.

Start list for Sunday?

iaaf site has good info today.

Any more recent performances from Ogata and Fujita?

Not much... Fujita's best was 2:06 but that was in 2000. He always had a tendency to overtrain and he did just that last year at Fukuoka when he ran 2:09 for third. I've heard his comment afterward what went wrong, which was baically lack of tapering. Hopefully he has learnt a lesson from that and would come right this time. I haven't heard any negative comment about his preparation so I'm assuming it went smooth. Ogata won the bronze medal in Helsinki. He and his team train in Nelson, NZ, and I've heard a very positive thing about his preparation. He's very talented and very determined; knows how to peak and to run well in a big race. To me, it's all a matter of good preparation, not so much of the most recent performance. Of course, as far as the "most recent performance" is concerned, Geb did 2:05 only 10 weeks ago. Well... It could be somewhat cold and possibly windy; I'm not quite sure how he would do in such condtion--all his great performance being run in the summer and marathon in the spring (London); that is the unknown to me. He may still do well.

Japanese don't really race overseas and most of them are sort of "unknown" to most Westeners. Even letsrun pole says "Other Japanese guy", no name mentioned. Yet, we have former national record holder (Fujita with 2:06), World Champ bronze medalist and former Fukuoka winner (Ogata) and 2004 Olympian with 2:07 PR (Suwa). I'm curious how many Westeners know who the heck they are and how they train and how they perform... Americans seem to be more interested in how the local first timer would do...

As you said the Japanese don't race much overseas so they don't have much of a fan base. I think Japanese women have fans because of their performance in the Olympics. That is true that Americans are interested in how Cabada does, but I think many more Americans are intersted in Haile than Cabrada.

Anyone found a webcast then?

I thought "other Japanese guy" in the poll was somewhat ignorant.