The same day as Pre-Nats I went out to watch the qualifying race for regionals for Tokyo-area university men, a 20 km road race with a hilly second half. The top 8 schools in the region weren't there as they're already qualified, but there were 47 schools, 12 runners per team, with the top 10 on each team counting in the scoring.
A freshman named Akinobu Murasawa won in 59:08. His pace for 20 km, 2:57/km, was the same as what Puskedra ran for 8 km to win the Blue race, and his last 8 km, on hills, were in 23:26, faster than Derrick's winning time in the White race. The top 11 men in the 20 km all ran under 3:00/km, while 14 men did it for 8 km in the combined White and Blue races.
Looking at the teams using just the top five runners per school, even with the best 8 schools not in the race all of the top 10 averaged 3:02/km for 20 km. 7 schools total did it in the White and Blue races together. The winner, Komazawa Univ., averaged 2:59/km for 20 km. Only Stanford matched that.
So, of course XC has different challenges than road racing, but 20 km vs. 8 km more than negates that. There are different priorities in training too, but what does all of this really say about U.S. university distance running?
NCAA XC is nice and all.....
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this is something ive wondered about myself. could the japanese compete with americans on grass? we know that the kids here would get trounced over 20k there, but does it matter? It seems like Japan at the highest level is fairly bad at speed oriented races on the track, and even the half marathon, so is it really working for them? The runners in these U.S. cross races like Pre Nats obviously have super fast PBs on the track and could run fast on the roads. Do you honestly think these Japanese who can run 59:x for 20k would dominate american xc? i dont. just somehow, i dont. uhhhh ibpeople saying xc isnt about pace.
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So if their university system is so great, what is happening to them AFTER the college days? They send over some of their best pro guys to race in the US every year on the track and they do pretty good but nothing that indicates their system produces better runners than ours. And in your particular example: roads are a lot different than grass, especially a soft course. Check the times and team averages from last year when the course wasn't soggy.
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So how many of these "Rising Sons" have run sub-13:30 at age 18?
Yeah. -
Brett can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't necessarily think that the lack of relatively fast middle distance runners in Japan is applicable, given the disproportionate emphasis placed on road racing and the marathon in Japan, compared to the US.
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True, not many high schoolers here are running 13:30, although the number isn't zero, but they do have high schoolers running 28 for 10000, and university guys running 27 and 1:01 for the half marathon. As far as what happens to them afterwards, compare the number of Americans and Japanese who have gone sub 1:02 for the half or sub 2:09 for the full marathon and you'll get the answer.
Somebody linked this on another thread, but here's more data on the comparison and video of the 20 km.
http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2009/10/university-mens-weekend-in-review-ncaa.html -
The Japanese and U.S. systems are set up to produce different outcomes. Consequently the Japanese produce far superior marathoners and the Americans produce far superior middle distance runners. Comparing the two is as silly and pointless as comparing road race and cross-country times and no one would be dumb enough to do that, would they?
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Brett, how to the NCAA XC and Japanese University systems compare in terms of total number of participants? A comparison based on results has to take this into account. I have this feeling that the Japanese system is culling the best from its entire college age population. The US situation is obviously not the same.
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cmon wrote:
I have this feeling that the Japanese system is culling the best from its entire college age population. The US situation is obviously not the same.
???
How is the US system any different in that regard, unless
you mean fat football players don't go out for cross country. -
X Little wrote:
The Japanese and U.S. systems are set up to produce different outcomes. Consequently the Japanese produce far superior marathoners ...
I do not think that this is the case any more. Looking at both major marathons and the Olympics the US runners have performed pretty well vis a vis all of those not from the Rift Valley and similar locales. -
J.R. wrote:
???
How is the US system any different in that regard, unless
you mean fat football players don't go out for cross country.
Only a fraction of US high schoolers fit for XC actually go out for XC, and then only a fraction of them decide to pursue it further in college. Distance running is not really an obsession in the US. Personally I think that for every German there are 2 more out there (in the US) with the same talent that never even consider XC or track. I'd like to hear Brett's input on this but I get the impression that in Japan they do a better job of finding their running talent early on. -
mr obvious wrote:
So how many of these "Rising Sons" have run sub-13:30 at age 18?
Yeah.
I thought this was an interesting question, so I did a little research on the last 5 years' U.S. and Japanese results. I expanded it to look at college-aged guys, everyone 22 and under, then looked at sub-1:02:30 half marathon results for the same time period and ages.
5000m
18 years old - 2 U.S., 0 Japan
German Fernandez - 13:25.46
Chris Derrick - 13:29.98
19 years old - 1 U.S., 2 Japan
Kensuke Takezawa - 13:22.36
Yuki Sato - 13:23.57
Hassan Mead - 13:28.45
20 years old - 1 U.S., 1 Japan
Kensuke Takezawa - 13:19.00
Evan Jager - 13:22.18
21 years old - 2 U.S., 1 Japan
Josh McDougal - 13:20.43
Yuichiro Ueno - 13:21.49
Chris Solinsky - 13:27.94
22 years old - 5 U.S., 2 Japan
Alan Webb - 13:10.86
Chris Solinsky - 13:12.24
Ryan Hall - 13:16.03
Yu Mitsuya - 13:18.32
Dathan Ritzenhein - 13:22.23
Radwan Koborsi - 13:26.65
Kensuke Takezawa - 13:26.90
Half-marathon
18 years old - none
19 years old - 1 Japan, 0 U.S.
Kensuke Takezawa - 1:02:26
20 years old - 1 Japan, 0 U.S.
Masato Kihara - 1:01:50
21 years old - 2 Japan, 0 U.S.
Masato Kihara - 1:02:07
Soji Ikeda - 1:02:10
22 years old - 3 Japan, 0 U.S.
Terumasu Okamura - 1:02:19
Satoru Kitamura - 1:02:26
Hiromichi Ueki - 1:02:29
Pretty interesting. Thanks for asking the question. Fernandez and Derrick are definitely off to a good start, but it's surprising how even things are in the 5000 up to age 22, wouldn't you say? The half results are pretty interesting too, and help explain the 5000 m results for age 22. -
Whoops, add Brandon Bethke's 13:27.79 onto the bottom of that 22 yr old 5000 list.
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The half results aren't interesting because only the Japaneese compete in the event at those ages. Your only set of data comes from one half of the sample group.
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How many elite American 18-22 year-olds run a half marathon? Maybe 1 a year, as a joke in between track and XC? Not a fair comparison at all. Not saying they would be faster, but we have no real way of knowing.
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You missed:
22 years old - 5[6] U.S., 2 Japan
Alan Webb - 13:10.86
Chris Solinsky - 13:12.24
Ryan Hall - 13:16.03
[ Galen Rupp - 13:18.12i (indoor AR) ]
Yu Mitsuya - 13:18.32
Dathan Ritzenhein - 13:22.23
Radwan Koborsi - 13:26.65
Kensuke Takezawa - 13:26.90 -
IAAF XC Championships Juniors Team Results
2009
5 United States 104
11 270 German Fernandez 11
15 268 Chris Derrick 15
30 276 Luke Puskedra 30
48 269 Patrick Dupont 48
52 272 Ryan Hill (52)
62 274 Francisco Medrano (62)
8 Japan 153
27 151 Akinobu Murasawa 27
40 155 Wataru Ueno 40
42 148 Shota Hattori 42
44 152 Kazuto Nishiike 44
45 145 Kenta Chiba (45)
73 147 Yutaro Fukushi (73)
2008
4 JPN 119
20 204 Hirotaka Tamura 20
32 198 Shun Kurihara 32
33 201 Hiroyuki Sasaki 33
34 196 Ryuji Kashiwabara 34
37 199 Akinobu Murasawa (37)
44 194 Kenta Chiba (44)
6 USA 138
25 348 German Fernandez 25
26 349 Emil Heineking 26
35 359 Kevin Williams 35
52 356 Ryan Sheridan 52
72 350 Benjamin Johnson (72)
86 352 Robert Moldovan (86)
2006
7 JPN 110
22 198 Tsuyoshi Ugachi 22
27 183 Takuya Fukatsu 27
28 193 Yuta Takahashi 28
33 200 Takafumi Yanase 33
35 189 Kodai Matsumoto (35)
42 187 Harutomo Kawano (42)
9 USA 170
34 349 Kiel Uhl 34
39 332 Andrew Bumbalough 39
47 345 Scott MacPherson 47
50 346 Jordan McDougal 50
58 334 Michael Eaton (58)
2005
7 USA 154
20 309 Galen Rupp 20
38 306 Stuart Eagon 38
46 307 Christopher Landry 46
50 305 Hakon DeVries 50
68 308 Jeremy Mineau (68)
77 310 Ryan Vail (77)
9 JPN 186
32 249 Satoru Kitamura 32
47 253 Yuki Sato 47
52 251 Hiroyuki Ono 52
55 250 Takahiro Mori 55
57 252 Hidekazu Sato (57)
63 248 Harutomo Kawano (63)
2004
5 JPN 105
17 65 Hidekazu Sato 17
24 63 Satoru Kitamura 24
28 64 Yuki Matsuoka 28
36 67 Yuichiro Ueno 36
40 62 Hideaki Date (40)
46 66 Yuki Sato (46)
7 USA 175
34 125 Ryan Deak 34
37 129 Forrest Tahdooahnippah 37
49 128 Joshua McDougal 49
55 127 John Janson 55
60 126 Trent Hoerr (60)
81 124 Ian Burrell (81)
