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Boston
Marathon marks first in
series
April 17, 2006
(AP)
BOSTON --The Boston Marathon
marked the first competition
in the World Marathon Majors
-- a two-year challenge to
crown a marathon champion.
Runners earn points for
their finishes in the
Boston, London, Berlin,
Chicago and New York
marathons.
Olympic silver medalist Meb
Keflezighi, who came in
third in Boston's race and
therefore got 10 points,
said he was glad he did well
in the series' first
competition.
"This is what we do for our
livelihood," he said.
"Boston was the first one
and definitely all of us
here are delighted to be the
indicators of that."
Alan Culpepper, who came in
fifth and earned one point,
said the series -- and its
$500,000 purse -- is a great
extra incentive to run the
races.
"Those are the races you
hope to be competitive in
anyways," he said. "It's
nice to have that little
extra incentive there."
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Echoes of the
Boston Marathon
© Pijume Diwesi
First,
congratulations to the 5 Pine Belt Pacers
who competed in the 110th edition of the
Boston Marathon, Robin Ryder, Jim Coll,
Keith Barrett, Joni Dunbar, and Vicki
Copeland. We are very proud of you guys!
We hope everyone send a little report of
your experience in such event. Not many
people have the opportunity or the
qualifications to be there running with the
best athletes in the World. Let us know
more about what is going on in a runner's
head while "navigating" the 26.2 miles in
Boston.
As you could
read in the webpage, the following were the
finish times for the Pacers:
Robin Ryder:
3:08:03 --- Keith Barrett: 3:27:23 ---
Jim Coll: 3:29:52
Joni Dunbar:
3:53:27 --- Vicky Copeland: 4:40:26
When looking the
official times at
the different checkpoints, it seems that
everyone but Keith hit the wall or had
a thought time in some point of the
competition. Thus, Robin seemed to struggle
a little bit after mile 21, Jim and Joni
after mile 18, and Vicky around mile 20-21.
How did it feel like guys? I remember when
I ran the New York Marathon for the first
time a couple of years ago, and I was doing
great until mile 16. Suddenly, I felt like
I ran out of gasoline and energy in mile 17
and had a really really hard time trying to
recover and keep going to finish the race.
How good is the Boston crowd supporting and
cheering for the runners? Share with the
other Pacers your experiences please. Even
that I don't have any authorization, I will
give you 5 extra points for the Grand Prix
Series for your reports and more details on
the race :)
Talking about
hitting the wall, look what happened to my
countryman, elite runner, Alirio Carrasco in
Boston. He crossed the 10K fast in 31:14
and the half marathon in 1:07:00 (probably
he was in the top 20 at the moment!). He
continued strong and reached mile 18 in
1:36:10. Then something happened and Alirio
struggled to reach mile 21. He passed there
in 2:06:10 and then finished the race in
5:16:14! There is no way, not even
crawling, you spend 3:10:04 in only 6.2
miles. I guess something really bad
happened to him and after some medical
attention and a couple of hours, he decided
to finish the race anyway. On the other
hand, my friend Fabiana Molina from Madison,
MS, the real current "Fastest Colombian
Living in Mississippi", ran very good
yesterday and at a steady pace. She crossed
the half marathon marker in 1:52:28 and
finished the race even faster, reaching the
finish line in 3:40:33.
As usual,
runners from Kenya won the event in both
categories. Robert Cheruiyot won the men
race in 2:07:14 followed by Benjamin Maiyo
in 2:08:21. In the women's category, Boston
rooky Rita Jeptoo from Kenya was the winner
in 2:23:38. Jelena Prokopcuka from Latvia
was second in 2:23:48 and Reiko Tosa from
Japan came in third with a time of 2:24:11.
Meb
Keflezighi was third in 2:09:56, Brian Sell
was fourth in 2:10:55, and Alan Culpepper
claimed the fifth position in 2:11:02.
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BOSTON
(not by Pijume Diwesi) Robert Cheruiyot won the Boston Marathon for
the second time, as he and fellow Kenyan
Benjamin Maiyo finished first and second in
the 110th running.
But a scan of the top
finishers Monday makes one thing abundantly
clear: The Americans are gaining.
In what Bill Rodgers
hailed as "a new day for the Boston
Marathon," American male runners wound up
third, fourth, and fifth, and claimed six of
the top 11 spots. U.S. runners had not fared
this well in Boston since 1985, when they
took eight of the top 10 spots.
Meb Keflezighi, 30, a
two-time Olympian and a silver medalist in
Athens, led the way for the Americans in his
Boston debut. He was third in 2 hours 9
minutes 56 seconds, which was three seconds
shy of his personal best, set in New York in
2004.
"It was great to be
here," said Keflezighi, who moved to the
United States in 1987 from Eritrea, began
running at age 12, won three state titles as
a senior at San Diego High School, and won
four national collegiate titles at the
University of California, Los Angeles, while
training under his current coach, Bob
Larsen.
"Congratulations to
all of the U.S. runners," Keflezighi said.
"I think it was very well done.
"That was a tremendous
effort by all of us."
Brian Sell, 28, who
trained with the formidable Hansons-Brooks
team out of Rochester Hills, Michigan, was
fourth in his Boston debut in 2:10:55, a
personal best. Alan Culpepper, 33, was fifth
in 2:11:02, his second top five in as many
Boston Marathons (he was fourth last year in
2:13:39).
"If you talked about
the numbers here," said Keith Hanson, coach
of the Hansons-Brooks club, "it's incredible
to say we have third, fourth, and fifth."
Hanson continued
scanning the winners' list. "And seventh
with Peter Gilmore, then Clint Verran in
10th, and Luke Humphrey in 11th," he said.
"So what is that, six out of 11? It's been a
long time since we've had that sort of
result."
Gilmore, 28, finished
in 2:12:45, while two Hansons-Brooks
teammates, Verran, 30, and Humphrey, 24,
crossed the line in 2:14:12 and 2:15:23,
respectively. In all, the Hansons-Brooks
team claimed seven of the top 22 spots.
"I think in the U.S.
there's so many other sports, and
marathoning and road racing is not really on
the radar screen," said Rodgers, a four-time
Boston champion who worked as a television
analyst Monday. "The Boston Marathon, yeah,
O.K., it's once a year. But I think for the
first time Americans are starting to get
some coaching and some support. Some of
these programs are starting to pay off, and
if we support our young people, they'll
always come through, and that's what we saw
today.
"They might not run
quite as fast as the great Kenyans, but
they'll run pretty darn good. To see that
happen today, it was pretty powerful,
especially here at Boston, which had gone
through a long kind of a drought.
Occasionally, runners would take fourth or
fifth, like Culpepper ran great here last
year, but to see the depth is nice."
Culpepper said the
results should not be surprising.
"We've seen it coming
for a while and we've seen it building," he
said. "This has been a work in progress for
the last five or six years. Myself, Meb,
this started 10 years ago, and Brian showed
today that the fruits of his labor are
paying off. I think it bodes very well for
the future.
"I think three or four
years ago, I don't know if there would have
been as many guys to pick up the slack there
when the Kenyans were fading or when some of
these other guys started to really fade. In
years past, they just would have maintained
their placing, whereas now guys are coming
up from behind and running them down."
Sell said his goal was
to maintain a constant 2:11 pace throughout
the race, but when he saw the lead group
tear out, "I just kind of let the pack go
and hoped I would see them again." Sell came
charging from behind and caught the leaders,
passing Culpepper on the course's final left
turn.
Asked if he kept tally
of the runners he passed, Sell said he had
not. But with a chuckle, he added: "I saw
John Korir of Kenya. It was nice to pass
him."
While that was a
symbolic moment, this race still belonged to
Kenya. Still, as Rodgers said, American
runners have new hope of not only keeping
pace with the Kenyans, but passing them.
Jeptoo tops the women
Rita Jeptoo of Kenya
won the women's division of the Boston
Marathon, Frank Litsky of The New York Times
reported.
The best credentials
in the women's race belonged to Reiko Tosa
of Japan, who had run 2:22:46. She led most
of the way until Jeptoo took command after
90 percent of the race had been run. Jeptoo,
25, finished in 2:23:38. Jelena Prokopcuka
of Latvia took second in 2:23:48 and Tosa
third in 2:24:11.
This was Jeptoo's
first race in the United States, and it was
remarkable that she was here at all. Jeptoo
was in Italy and lost her passport. She
applied for a new one and was told she had
written to the wrong address. A new passport
finally came through, and she arrived in
Boston on Friday. Her coach had visa
problems and never arrived.
"I didn't see the
course until today," Jeptoo said.
She was not the only
one missing clues.
"I didn't even know
where Heartbreak Hill was," Tosa said.
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