Shimada and Stenson Break Launceston Half CR

With great conditions at what organizers billed as the highest-label half marathon in the southern hemisphere, the only half marathon in the south with a World Athletics Elite Label or better, Japan’s Teruki Shimada and Australian Commonwealth Games champ Jessica Stenson broke the men’s and women’s course records at the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon Sunday in Tasmania.

The men’s race start list read like a rematch of February’s Marugame Half Marathon, with most of the 10 fastest men in the race having run there. On the Australian side was an interesting lineup of marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan, half marathon NR holder Brett Robinson, and road 10 km NR holder Sam Clifford, with Teikyo University duo Shimada and Jinya Ozaki and Rikkyo University pair Kento Baba and Hiroto Kuniyasu leading the Japanese contingent in their collective international debuts.

Baba, who ran 1:00:26 to finish 2 seconds ahead of Buchanan, was tasked with pacing through 10 km in 28:50 but struggled to hit that, clocking 29:14 before stepping off. Including Australians Isaac Heyne and Liam Boudin, the pack progressively whittled down as different people took turns at the front. Just before 20 km it was down to Heyne, Robinson and Shimada when Shimada, 5th on the First Stage at this year’s Hakone Ekiden and 1:00:56 in Marugame, made the first real surge of the race. Robinson responded and took the lead on a corner just after 20 km, but at a 180˚ turnaround a few hundred meters later Heyne and Shimada went by him again.

Shimada surged just before the final corner and managed to hold Heyne off by 1 second, breaking Robinson’s CR by 26 seconds to win in 1:01:12. Heyne was next in 1:01:13 and Robinson 3rd in 1:01:20, with Ozaki running a 1:01:24 PB for 4th and Kuniyasu 5 seconds off his PB in 1:01:35 for 5th. All 5 were under the old CR.

Shimada, who had never been outside Japan before and had to get his first passport to come to the race, missed the Australian all-comers record by just 1 second but didn’t care much. “It was a big honor to get invited here, and I wanted to make the most of the chance with a good run,” he said post-race. “I was pretty nervous running my first race against really good people like this, but I planned to save as much as I could for the last part of the race and I’m really happy it worked out the way it did.” Post-race he presented the other podium finishers with gifts he had brought from Japan.

In the women’s race Stenson and the only other sub-70 woman in the field, Japan’s Yumi Yoshikawa, went out together with company from Australian Caitlin Adams. Adams dropped off just after 8 km, the trio going through 10 km in 33:11, 33:12 and 33:22, and just past 10 km Stenson started to pull away from Yoshikawa. “It was a bit depressing to watch her inch away and just be like, ‘Noooo, don’t goooooo!’ Yoshikawa laughed post-race.

Stenson ran the 2nd half unchallenged, running the first-ever sub-71 and sub-70 in Launceston with a 1:09:51 CR for the win. Yoshikawa got under the old CR too in 1:10:43 for 2nd, with Adams hanging on for a PB in 3rd in 1:11:14. Running most of the race in 4th just a week after winning the Ulaanbataar Marathon, Mongolian NR holder Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh faded to 6th in 1:13:54 after getting run down by Australians Sarah Klein and Milly Clark.