"If Kawauchi succeeds in breaking 62 minutes he will become the 24th Japanese man sub-62 this year."

not a lot of american collegians close to puskedra, but if training were geared toward half, there'd be more sub 62 americans, no doubt. that's just indicative of a very high level of endurance training that is very similar to what other japanese are doing, with little speedwork to differentiate and produce competitive times on the world stage.

here is the ALL TIME USA half marathon list 62:00 or under

1. ryan hall 59:43

2. ritz 60:00

3. todd williams 60:11(aided)

4. abdi 60:29 (aided)

5. rupp 60:30 (aided)

6. mohammad trafeh 60:39 (aided)

7. mark curp 60:55

8. meb 61:00

9. khanouchi 61:17 (he ran 6027 when he was morrocan)

10. tie keith brantly and scott bauhs 61:30

12. luke puskedra 61:36

13. george malley 61:43

14. bobby curtis 61:52

15. antonio vega 61:54

16. josh rohatinsky 61:55

17. david morris 62:00

larry greene 61:28 short course

bob kempainen 60:51 downhill

david morris 61:07 downhill

paul pilkington 61.16 down hill

terry cotton 59:41 (extreme downhill 648 meters at fontana)

i got this from several sources so i dont know what if any is the difference between aided or downhil.

so even putting in cottons time from fontana where your practically being pushed off a cliff, there are only 21 americans all time under 62:00

The Japanese men won a team medal at the 2011 Marathon world champs. U.S. distance running is doing very well, but it is ridiculous to say that "Japan's system sucks" right now.

douglas burke wrote:

i got this from several sources so i dont know what if any is the difference between aided or downhil.

so even putting in cottons time from fontana where your practically being pushed off a cliff, there are only 21 americans all time under 62:00

You arent even close. Try the ARRS website.

Ho hum wrote:

To be fair to Americans, there's probably a good number of collegiates who could go sub-62. Japan seems to have a larger number of young runners concentrating on the half for whatever reason.

This is the correct answer. There are clearly 24 guys with this ability, if they all trained for a spring half. But why would they?

The primary difference I see is a much earlier focus on longer races for the Japanese. I think the US has more in common with Kenya and Ethiopia in the sense that runners aged 18 and under are normally training for the 5K/10K rather than marathons. There have been some recent examples of Kenyans racing the marathon a little younger, but I bet they spent a good 3-4 years developing speed even if they weren't racing heavily on the track.

Regarding Kawauchi's selection, what has been going on with the 20+ Japanese runners who have ran faster than him this year? A lot of injuries perhaps or maybe they are all preparing for fall marathon races in Japan and not focused on the 1/2 marathon world champs?

Nevertheless it is great that he is running this weekend.

True ten years ago, different story today.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

The primary difference I see is a much earlier focus on longer races for the Japanese. I think the US has more in common with Kenya and Ethiopia in the sense that runners aged 18 and under are normally training for the 5K/10K rather than marathons. There have been some recent examples of Kenyans racing the marathon a little younger, but I bet they spent a good 3-4 years developing speed even if they weren't racing heavily on the track.