Skip to main content

'Morocco's Adil Annani Wins Beppu-Oita Marathon'

http://iaaf.org/LRR09/news/newsid=49180.html

Ken Nakamura's excellent IAAF report on the 2009 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, linked above, covers much of what I would otherwise say. One small error in his report is that Seiji Kobayashi's PB performance gives him 'little chance' of being selected for the Berlin World Championships, not 'a little chance.' Kobayashi ran Beppu-Oita, aka Betsudai, after finishing 20th in Fukuoka this past December in 2:20:46.

Adil Annani has apparently been coached by the great Moroccan marathoner Abdelkader El Mouaziz since 2007. At the 11 km water station Annani missed his special drink. Looking back over his shoulder he crashed straight on into the next table, falling forward onto the table. It evidently didn't take much out of him.

Another detail worth mentioning was the strong marathon debut by Yuki Kawauchi (Gakushuin Univ.), one of the top runners on this year's Hakone Ekiden 6th stage and the 3rd place finisher at the 2008 Ageo City Half Marathon. Kawauchi was 20th in 2:19:26, but he ran a nearly 5-minute negative split with a first half of 1:12:28 after starting in the back of the field with only a half marathon qualifying time. Kawauchi's splits from 35 km to 40 km and from 40 km to the finish were the fastest in the field, faster than winner Annani's. Although Ryosuke Fukuyama garnered far more attention for his debut, he finished in 19th less than a minute ahead of Kawauchi after running a 1:05:07 first half.

This year's Beppu-Oita was also the final run for the holder of the fastest time ever on the Betsudai course by a Japanese runner, Takayuki Nishida. Nishida won the 2001 Betsudai in 2:08:45 to qualify for the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, but he never again ran even remotely close to this performance. Following his 2:23:09 25th-place finish yesterday he announced that it would be his last marathon before his retirement at the end of the Japanese fiscal year next month.

Click here for complete results of the 2009 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon.

Comments

by7 said…
and your race??
Brett Larner said…
Not really worth mentioning, thanks. I felt fine but started getting blisters on both feet after 14 km, then stomach cramps after 16 km. Not sure what happened. All the blisters popped by 25 km and the cramps finally faded around 27 km, so I was able to get more or less back on pace but had lost too much time and missed the 30 km checkpoint by a few seconds. I guess this means I'll be doing Tokyo as a 'serious' race.
Brett Larner said…
Adizero LT. I ran my last two marathons, three half marathons and a 30 km race in this model, including my last two halves in this pair, without problems. I don't know what happened. I had bad blistering the last time I ran Beppu too, but that was in a pair of Asics.

The stomach problems were more the main issue this time, I think.

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half