While many of the other main contenders for September’s MGC Race, Japan’s new 2020 Olympic trials marathon, were focused on trying to run super fast times at the Tokyo Marathon , 2018 Asian Games gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) did his last major tuneup for next month’s Boston Marathon at the 70th edition of Kumamoto’s Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon . Throughout the race Inoue went head-to-head with 2018 winner Patrick Muendo Mwaka (Aisan Kogyo) before finally dropping him in the final kilometers. At 1:02:21 Mwaka was more than 30 seconds up on his winning time from last year, but Inoue surged away from him to win in 1:02:12, his best half marathon time in four years and the second-fastest winning time in Tamana’s 70-year history. Only five people had ever broken 63 minutes at Tamana previously, but this year the top eight all did it, 8th-placer Shunsuke Kanbe (Komazawa Univ.) running a PB 1:02:56. Boston-bound Shizuoka Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov’t) w...
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