Invited runners for 68 th Lake Biwa Marathon The invited runners for 68 th Lake Biwa Marathon were announced. The fastest runner in the field is Vincent Kipruto, 2011 World Championships silver medalist. His marathon personal best is 2:05:13, recorded in 2010 Rotterdam Marathon. Kipruto has two more sub-2:06 marathons, 2:05:47 in 2009 Paris Marathon and 2:05:33 in 2011 Rotterdam Marathon. The Lake Biwa Marathon course record is 2:06:13 by Wilson Kipsang and the fastest marathon in March is 2:05:37 by Wilson Loyanai recorded in 2012 Seoul Marathon. Kipruto has a chance to break both. If he ran sub-2:06 in Lake Biwa, it will be his fourth sub-2:06 and thus only Haile Gebrselassie and Geoffrey Mutai with five sub-2:06 have more sub-2:06. Second fastest runner in the field is Peter Kirui, who has marathon best of 2:06:31, recorded in 2011 Frankfurt marathon. He was sixth at 10000m in 2011 World Championships and has the half marathon best of 59:39, recorded in 2012 New York City Half Marathon. He ran 27:32 10000m at high altitude of Nairobi in 2011. Tariku Jufar with 2:06:51 marathon best, recorded in 2012 Houston Marathon and Viktor Rothlin with the 2:07:23 marathon best, recorded in 2008 Tokyo Marathon, and Abderrahime Bouramdane with the 2:07:33 marathon best, recorded in 2010 London Marathon round up the sub-2:08 runners in the field. Although not an invited runner, Atsushi Fujita has marathon best of 2:06:51, one time national record recorded in 2000 Fukuoka Marathon. Turning attention to the domestic invited runners, fourth (Ryo Yamamoto), sixth (Tomoyuki Morita), seventh (Takashi Horiguchii), and eighth (Masashi Hayashi) in the last year’s Lake Biwa Marathon, return to the race where they set their current personal best. Invited runners from oversea Vincent Kipruto (KEN) 2:05:13 2010 Rotterdam Peter Kirui (KEN) 2:06:31 2011 Frankfurt Tariku Jufar (ETH) 2:06:51 2012 Houston Viktor Rothlin (SUI) 2:07:23 2008 Tokyo Abderrahime Bouramdane (MAR) 2:07:33 2010 London Alexey Reunkov (RUS) 2:09:54 2011 Frankfurt Paulo Roberto Paula (BRA) 2:10:23 2012 Padua James Mwangi (KEN) 2:08:38 2011 Fukuoka Domestic Ryo Yamamoto 2:08:44 2012 Lake Biwa Tomoyuki Morita 2:09:12 2012 Lake Biwa Takashi Horiguchi 2:09:16 2012 Lake Biwa Masashi Hayashi 2:09:55 2012 Lake Biwa Koji Kobayashi 2:10:40 2012 Chicago Shinobu Kubota 1:01:38 2012 Marugame Half Other notable elites: Masakazu Fujiwara 2:08:12 2003 Lake Biwa Atsushi Fujita 2:06:51 2000 Fukuoka Keita Akiba 2:10:53 2009 Beppu-Oita Tomoya Shimizu 2:09:23 2008 Lake Biwa Seiji Kobayashi 2:10:38 2009 Beppu-Oita Kazuki Ikenaga 2:10:44 2008 Lake Biwa Yukihiro Kitaoka 2:10:51 2010 Lake Biwa Suehiro Ishikawa 2:11:13 2012 Lake Biwa Satoru Kasuya 2:11:17 2011 Lake Biwa Kohei Matsumura 2:11:18 2012 Beppu-Oita Tomoya Adachi 2:11:59 2008 Beppu-Oita Maina Dishon Karukuwa (KEN) 2:12:25 2012 Hofu .