At the Races

HONOLULU MARATHON CAPS RECORD YEAR

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Honolulu, HI – Imagine what old Pheidippides would have thought of this marathon year of 2019. The original marathoner, the one who expired after running 40k from Marathon to Athens in 492 B.C. to bring word of a military victory to the city fathers, how would he have wrapped his head around Eliud Kipchoge’s 1:59:40 exhibition in Vienna, or Brigid Kosgei’s 2:14:04 in Chicago, or now Titus Ekiru’s 2:07:59.02 in the heat, humidity, and hills of Honolulu?

Honolulu record setter Titus Ekiru

First of all, he’d probably lose his mind by just the idea of Hawaii as a place, but other than that he’d likely wonder if gravity had somehow been mastered or overcome. How else to explain such running?  Yet we don’t have to go back 2500 years to be gobsmacked by the current state of affairs.

“Who ever thought we’d see times like this here?” said long time Honolulu Marathon president Jim Barahal after watching Titus Ekiru’s 27-second course record at yesterday’s 47th Honolulu Marathon.

Barahal’s head-scratching bemusement distilled the feelings many have had regarding the tectonic changes this sport has been living through in recent years.

Nowadays, rather than the grueling endurance challenge of yesteryear, the marathon seems like just another race for the sport’s top talent. In fact, it doesn’t seem to give them even a moment’s pause whatsoever.

So when 28 year-old Titus Ekiru arrived on the island to defend his 2018 title coming off a three minute marathon PB in the spring in Milan, Italy, then tuned up for Honolulu with a big half marathon best in Lisbon in late October (60:12), the Honolulu record was definitely under threat, given the right conditions. Continue reading →

2019 KIGALI INTERNATIONAL PEACE MARATHON – VIDEO

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As the biggest marathon of the year gears up for its 42nd running in New York City this Sunday, thought I’d post a video of an exotic marathon we covered from earlier this year in the central east African nation of Rwanda.

What’s the story of Rwanda?  Out of darkness -> light. Kwibuka – Remember, Unite, Renew.

So it is with the marathon. And so thousands of people from 55 nations lined up at Amahoro National Stadium to contend with 42.2 kilometers. Some to remember, others to renew, but all to unite.

The 15TH KIGALI INTERNATIONAL PEACE MARATHON                                        A story of remembrance, redemption, and renewal.

 

Check out their website https://kigalimarathon.org For more information about the 2020 Kigali International Peace Marathon,

 

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NEW YORK CITY 2011 – LOOK BACK AT A RECORD RUN

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With cool weather expected and the nature of the current game where no record is safe, thought I’d bring us back to 2011, the year Geoffrey Mutai set what still stands as the New York City Marathon course record, 2:05:06.  This account comes directly from journal #182, 6 November 2011.

New York 2011

40°F and clear, 48% humidity under calm flag conditions. Only going up to 56F, the perfect day for the 42nd running of the ING (now TCS) New York City Marathon.

Besides the NYCM title itself, two other factors will come into play on the men’s side today. Though unofficial, this will serve as an Olympic selection for several top Kenyans, notably Geoffrey and Emmanual Mutai (unrelated) the Boston and London course record holders.

With two-time world champion Abel Kirui and world record holder Patrick Makau already selected for London 2012, only one spot remains open. Kenyan Athletics chairman Isaiah Kiplagat has said the decision will be made after today’s race.

Another factor will be the completion of the 2010 – 2011 World Marathon Majors series. Five men remain in contention for the series title and $500,000 prize.

Emmanuel Mutai is in the best position, sitting second in the current standings just five points behind Berlin Marathon champion Patrick Makau, who has completed his season. A first or second place finish today would wrap up the series win for Emmanuel. If he takes third or worst, it opens the door for Geoffrey Mutai, Tsegaye Kebede and Gebre Gebremariam if they win.

The women set off first.

The big favorite is Kenyan Mary Keitany, the London Marathon champion looking to answer Russia’s Lilya Shobukhova’s 2:18:20 win in Chicago last month. Mary debuted in New York City 2010, but was a deer in the headlights, overwhelmed by the size of the city and the prospect of her first marathon. She finished third behind fellow Kenyan Edna Kiplagat and American Shalane Flanagan as all three played a cautious game until the end.

Today, fearful no more, the tiny terror lit out from Staten Island like there was a close-out sale waiting in Manhattan. She was alone by the time she turned right onto fourth Avenue in Brooklyn coming off Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

At 2 miles she was at 10:29 which was faster than the men’s 2 mile split in 2010 (10:55). It’s one thing not to be cautious….

Her 10K split, 31:52, which would’ve placed her second at the New York Mini 10K in June, crazy! At one point she was on 2:14 pace with a course record of 2:22:31 from 2003 by Margaret Okayo, that seemed  a tad excessive.

A half hour after the women the men begin, and this time with no pacesetters. The large contingent begins modestly, 24:40 at 5 miles which is just 2:09 pace. But as they weave through Brooklyn, they begin to knock off sub-4:50 miles (3:00/km) with regularity and slowly begin nearing course record pace.

Keitany stretches her lead with each passing mile, hitting the half in 1:07:56, a crazy split. Behind, a pack of four forms up, also under course record pace hitting a half in 1:10:08. They include Bronx-based Ethiopian Buzunesh Deba, fellow Ethiopians Werknesh Kidane and Firehiwot Dado, along with Boston champion Caroline Kilel of Kenya. 

Miles 14 and 15 through Queens took 5:26 and 5:37 for Keitany after her series of sub-5:10 miles earlier in the race. Her lead peaks at 2:21 as she crossed the 59th St. Bridge heading into Manhattan.

In 2001, Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia set the 2:07:43 course record in NYC, the longest standing course record of all five Marathon Majors. But with today’s deep field and ideal conditions, it seems all but sure we will see new ground broken.  Continue reading →

FALMOUTH FOTOS 2019

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Falmouth, MA. – Pictures from the lead man’s vehicle at the 47th New Balance Falmouth Road Race on old Cape Cod. U.S. Army’s Leonard Korir (32:11) wins his first Falmouth after finishing second twice and third two other times. Four time champion Stephen Sambu of Kenya takes 2nd (32:29) with fellow Kenyan Edward Cheserek in his his first Falmouth taking third (32:30) and former NCAA steeplechase champ Mason Ferlic out of Michigan in 4th (32:54) on a warm, muggy morning.

Leonard Korir opens his lead in the final mile over Sambu.

Korir turns Falmouth Harbor heading toward mile six.

1983 Boston Marathon champ Greg Meyer watches the action near six miles with 1978 Falmouth runner up Mike Roche.

Passing six miles in 27:30 off a 4:40 split.

The final stretch with 1K to go at the turn.

Korir salutes the crowd.

Victory awaits!

How the followers saw Leonard at the line.

4X champ Sambu holds off Cheserek for second 32:29 to 32:30.

Former Michigan Wolverine Mason Ferlic In fourth in a breakthrough performance.

Sailing home!

Falmouth board member Scott Ghelfi interviews the champion.

To the victor go the spoils.

Everyone’s destination.

The ball field was jammed!

Former Philadelphia Half Marathon race director Tony DeSabato with 1980 Falmouth Road Race champion Rod Dixon in the Crow’s Nest.

The calm before The storm in Woods Hole.

Lined up and ready to go.

Nerves apparent before the start.

And they are off.

2014-2017 champ Stephen Sambu attack’s early out of Woods Hole.

Sambu in close concentration with Silas Kipruto already chalkenged.

Mike 1 in 4:27, 7 seconds faster than last year.

No prisoners today.

In mile 2, Cooper River Bridge 10K champ Silas Kipruto made his bid.

Kipruto put some distance on the pack in the second mile.

The gap widens.

Three-time Bix 7 champion Kipruto finished fifth at the Wharf to Wharf six miler in Capitola, California two weeks ago.

Famous Nobska Light

Rolling hills and tree cover define the first 3 miles of the Falmouth course.

2 miles in 9:03, a 4:36 second mile. Silas still leads but the pack is closing.

Together again. Kipruto, Korir, Sambu, David Bett and King Chez.

No messing around. Sambu again goes to the front and puts in the boot.

Serious business.

Edward Cheserek In his first Falmouth race came in with a slight hamstring pull from 10 days ago after running a 13:04 personal best over 5000 m in Belgium. But in mile three he fades from the front as the pack strings out under the pressure applied by four-time champion Sambu.

Sensing the moment at hand, Sambu continues to drive with only Leonard Korir and Silas Kipruto able to maintain contact.

Mike 3 in 13:39, a 4:36 split and it’s Just the two Falmouth veterans still in the hunt.

Gaps have formed.

Sambu finished fourth and Korir third last year as they let University of Michigan 10,000 m NCAA champion Ben Flanagan from Canada hang around until his speed took the victory. This year it was a drive from the start.

Big boisterous crowds lined the route along the beach

Sambu never came off the gas. But he couldn’t break free. He’s training for the New York City Marathon in November and coming off fourth place finishes at the Utica Boilermaker 15K and the Bix 7, and a seventh place at the Peachtree Road race July 4th in Atlanta.

Beginning to show signs of wear.

Four miles passed in 18:12 off a 4:32 split. Sambu wonders where Cheserek is.

King Chez we gathered him is only 14 seconds behind at 4 1/2 miles.

Finally, Leonard Korir takes control.

Korir check his watch and sees that he passed 5 miles in 22:50 off a 4:37 split. In 1978 Bill Rodgers, Mike Roche, Craig Virgin, and Alberto Salazar passed 5 miles at 22:40 as Rogers headed toward his third Falmouth win with Roche in second, Virgin in third and Alberto fading back to tenth heading toward an ice bath to reduce his spiking body temperature. This year, Korir cruised to his first Falmouth victory in the final two miles. Thanks for taking the ride with me on the men’s lead vehicle along with 2018 champion Ben Flanagan provided color commentary like a real natural. See you down the roads.

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47th NB Falmouth Road Race Men’s Preview

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Falmouth, MA. – Tomorrow’s 47th New Balance Falmouth Road Race men’s competition will have a throwback look to it as the top three seeds are all Kenyan-born, but American schooled athletes. Since Joe Nzau of the University of Wyoming became the first Kenyan champion at Falmouth in 1983, that’s how we became acquainted with the first generation of great Kenyan runners who emerged in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

4x men’s champion Stephen Sambu & 2012 women’s winner Margaret Wangari

Four-time Falmouth champion Stephen Sambu (2013–2017) was a nine-time All-American at the University of Arizona. Twice runner up to Sambu in Falmouth and also twice third, including last year, Leonard Korir was a two-time NCAA champion at Iona in 2011. And Falmouth debutante Edward Cheserek was a record-breaking 17-time NCAA titleist at the University of Oregon.

Defending champion Ben Flanagan of Canada out of the University of Michigan is back in town this year but injured so we won’t be running just doing personal appearances at the expo.

Just got word that Clayton Young, BYU’s NCAA 10,000 meter champ in Austin this June has been added to the start list. That’s the same position Ben Flanagan held coming into Falmouth 2018 out of Ann Arbor. 

So far in 2019 Sambu has not been the athlete he has been in the past. Rather than winning, he’s been taking thirds (BAA10 K), fourths (Bix 7), and sevenths (Peachtree).  But at age 31, he’s transitioning to the marathon heading toward the New York City Marathon in November. That transition is often attended by a slowing in speed as distance in training piles up. Continue reading →

KORIO & JEPKOSGEI RUN AWAY WITH B2B WINS

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Cape Elizabeth, ME. –

Portland Head Light, the oldest commissioned lighthouse in the USA, overlooking the finish line.

Kenyans Joyciline Jepkosgei  and Alex Korio broke free early and cruised home to easy wins today at the 22nd TD Beach to Beacon 10K. Joyciline finished and 31:05, a fine, but not spectacular time on an ideal day with start temperatures under 70°F no breeze and low humidity. The victory is equal to her win last week at the Quad City Times Bix 7 Road Race in Davenport, Iowa.

In the men’s race, Alex Korio took control of the race from the airhorn start and within the first half–mile the competition had been whittled to four with Korio fronting fellow Kenyan Jarius Birech, Belgian Bashar Abdi, and Australian Brett Robinson.

#19 Robinson, #9 Bashir Abdi, #1 Korio and #4 Birech pulling free early.

They hustled through the opening mile in 4:24. Last year under heavy humidity New Zealand’s Jake Robertson blitzed a 4:15 opener on his way to a runaway 27:37 win, the third fastest time in race history. But the opening mile has fallen as fast as 4:08 in the past when going out very hard with the tactic of the day. It has also gone out as slow as 4:51 when the heat was on.

58:51 Half-Marathon man Korio applying pressure in mile 2. Birech in second, Abdi in third, Robinson fourth.

Today, Korio opened his winning margin as the course turned right off Route 77 onto Old Ocean House Road. Mile 2 tumbled in 4:30 (8:54) with the third mile evaporating in 4:21 (13:15).

Up close and personal

Korio was a late entrant into the race, only arriving last night at 7 PM from Kenya. Several Kenyan athletes who had been okayed for travel visas six weeks ago did not receive them until yesterday, while 2016 third-place finisher William Sitonic was involved in a minor car accident on his way to the Nairobi airport. Though the accident was not serious, it was enough to keep him off the flight and at home.

Korio’s leads swelled to 14 seconds as he passed 5K in 14:43. And now it was a matter of time

Turning onto Shore Road heading to Mile 4.

The 4th mile fell in 4:24 and five in 4:22, and suddenly the course record was at least within sniffing distance. But though he pushed, Alex could only notch the second fastest time in Beach to Beacon history, winning in 27:34, six seconds shy of Gilbert Okari’s 2003 course record.

Final Stride! 27:34 second fastest time ever at B2B
(Photo courtesy of Bill Nickerson)

But his winning margin of 54 seconds over runner up Jairus Birech (27:34 to 28:28) was an event record, beating last year’s 50-second margin by Jake Robertson over Stephen Sambu. Bashir Abdi finished third in 28:35, and Brett Robinson fourth in 28:43, coming home just as they started out in the first mile.

World record holder at 10K Joyciline Jepkosgei (29:43) made quick work of the other women, winning over defending champion Sandrafelis Chebet 31:05 to 31:37. Charlotte “Charley” Purdue of the UK took third and 32:17.

Fauble the top American finishing sixth in 28:58. Bumbalough just behind in 29:00.

In the American male division, a real battle was fought until the final mile when Scott Fauble of Northern Arizona Elite (28:58) of Flagstaff bested Bowerman TC standouts Andrew Bumbalough (29:00)and Chris Derrick (29:02) with Saucony-sponsored Noah Droddy of Boulder, Colorado finishing 4th in the American division. Overall the Americans finished in sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth overall.

In the women’s American division, 2015 bronze medalist in the world championships in 10,000m Emily Infeld took fourth overall and top American.  Second-place went to Becky Wade of Colorado who was seventh overall.  Third-place to Katie Newton of the BAA out of Belmont, Massachusetts in ninth place.

Race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson greets finishers at Ft. Williams Park.

Skies turned gray as the awards were handed out, but the spirit of the day and that of race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson provided plenty of cheer to the 8000 competitors in Maine’s largest road race and one of the world’s most prestigious.

Heading home after the annual Lobster Bake at Ft. Williams Park.

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ABDI ABDIRAHMAN BRINGING RACING BACK HOME TO SOMALIA

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Cape Elizabeth, ME. –  Like many a natural born American, I had one parent who was not.

In the waning gray days of World War II, Eastern Europe was a place of devastation and dislocation. In that tumult, my parents – he an American army officer who had escaped from German POW camp, and she a member of the Polish Home Army – met and married in February 1945 after a courtship of only ten days.

“In wartime,“ Pop once told me, “you don’t analyze, you act.“

Ten days later Mom and Pop were forced to split up, he heading east in search of an American mission, she remaining behind with only a handwritten note identifying her as the wife of an American soldier while asking anyone who could to help.

It took the better part of 1945 for Mom to escape Russian occupied Poland and make her way to Nuremberg, Germany where she found refuge with General George Patton’s Third Army.  It was in late 1945, then, that she finally sailed for America hoping she would recognize the man she had married nearly a year before. Such are the rippling effects of war and its many deprivations and dislocations.

Mom finally arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in January 1946 and by June 1951 was a mother of three native-born American kids living in a newly built suburban home. But she did not become an American citizen until 1972 some 26 years later. Though she loved America and all it had given her, she was forever a proud Pole, too.

“How do you renounce who you are?” she once said when I asked why it had taken her so long to apply for citizenship, as renouncing former allegiances was one of the requirements of American citizenship.

This is a long way around to recognizing that America still remains the most unique country in the world, the only nation born of an idea rather than of blood or soil. But it is also an acknowledgment that America is not alone in generating patriotic feelings in the hearts of its people, especially those forced leave because circumstances beyond their control had given them no choice but to go.

So when the American president – whose mother was born in Scotland and grandfather in Bavaria  – fomented a chant of “send her back“ from xenophobic followers against a Somali-born U.S. Congress person, it flew in the face that America has shown the world throughout its history.

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) came to the United States from Somalia with her family as a ten year-old in 1992. She is the Somali-born U.S. Congress person President Trump’s followers want to “send back” after she made comments they found critical of Israel and America.

Irrepressible Abdi

Four-time U.S. Olympic distance runner Abdi Abdirahman also fled war-torn Somalia with his family when he was only three years old. After existing in a Kenyan refugee camp for five years, the family found asylum in the USA in 1985.

Today, Abdi is working toward bringing the sport that has defined his adult years back to his homeland, because though he is a proud American, and eager capitalist, he remains a loving son of Somalia, too. Continue reading →