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Lead Stories: Sunday, November 23, 2008

97th ING Bay to Breakers Returns on Sunday in San Francisco

Posted May 14th, 2008 at 12:00 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Road Racing

Part parade, part fashion show, and part road race, the 97th ING Bay to Breakers returns to the streets of San Francisco on Sunday, and organizers expect some 70,000 runners and walkers (about half of them unregistered) to take part.

Up front, the race is serious business. Elite athlete coordinator Josh Muxen has assembled a strong field to chase a $74,000 prize money purse, including a special $25,000 ING Battle to the Breakers bonus which will be awarded to the first athlete to cross the finish line. That could be a man or it could be a woman; women are given a four minute and 40 second headstart based on the difference between the male (33:42) and female (38:22) course records.

In addition, there is a $5000 bonus for the first man and first woman to reach the top of Hayes Street Hill, a beast of a climb which begins at the two mile mark on Franklin Street, rises 201 feet, and covers a distance of 0.69 miles. Athletes can pocket the bonus as long as they also finish in the top-20.
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Kenyans Sweep; Khannouchi Frustrated at Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon San Jose

Posted October 15th, 2007 at 4:06 PM by Martha Jones

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Kenyans McDonald Ondara and Magdalene Makunzi won the second annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon San Jose on Sunday. Ondara, 23, covered the 13.1-mile course in 1 hour, 1 minute, 11 seconds. Makunzi, 24, broke the tape in 1:09:58.

The men’s race culminated in a sprint to the finish as Ondara, who led the majority of the race, beat the 27-year-old Tanzanian John Yuda by just seconds.

“I was sort of afraid of him,” said Ondara of his closest competitor Yuda. “It was very hard to predict,” Ondara added about planning his final kick.

Yuda managed a smile as he clutched his ribs after the finish from an apparent side stitch.

“It was a good race,” Yuda said. “The course was quick.”

After mile three, the men’s lead pack began to thin out, gradually dropping American Khalid Khannouchi. The four-time Chicago Marathon champion was clearly frustrated with his 1:05:04 finish time.
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Khannouchi set to lead Meb-less American bid at
Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon

Posted October 10th, 2007 at 6:23 PM by Martin Kennedy

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Former world and current American record holder in the marathon Khalid Khannouchi has never made an Olympic team in his historic career. Now, at the age of 35, Khannouchi leads the American bid at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon San Jose, Sunday, October 14, 2007, in preparation for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Men’s Marathon in New York City next month.

Without the 2006 women’s champion Silvia Skvortsova in this year’s field, Kenyan Edna Kiplagat returns to San Jose to better her second place finish from a year ago in the event’s inaugural running.

Khannouchi’s list of career accomplishments are impressive. He has won the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon four times. Twice he has set world records at the marathon, once in Chicago 1999 (2:05:42), and again in London 2002 (2:05:38) in what many in the running world believe to be the greatest marathon ever run.
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Kibet, Chepchumba Claim Victory at Philadelphia Distance Run

Posted September 19th, 2007 at 4:30 AM by Allyson Rosen

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Kenyan Julius Kibet earned top honors for the second time at Sunday’s 30th Philadelphia Distance Run, winning the men’s race in 1 hour, 2 minutes, 2 seconds. Pamela Chepchumba, also from Kenya, won the women’s race in 1:08:45, one of the world’s fastest half-marathon times for women (and the best in the U.S.) this year.

It took a few miles for the men’s professional field to warm up to the clear and cool morning, recording their first sub-five minute mile at mile three (4:52). The pack of 27 men weaved through Center City, before doubling back onto Benjamin Franklin Parkway, to the cheers of thousands of runners who were taking their initial steps on the course.
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Race Report: Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile

Posted April 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 AM by Martin Kennedy

Section: News & Results

It had been eight years since Worku Bikila became the first and only Ethiopian to win the prestigious Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile. This year, that storied running nation returned to the race’s West Potomac Park victory stand, times two, taking both the men’s and women’s titles, with a world record tossed in for good measure.

For the second year in a row race director Phil Stewart gave the elite women a 10-minute head start, but perhaps they should have made Teyba Erkesso start with the main field, just to give the rest of the women a sporting chance. As it was, she left them in the dust from the opening mile and never looked back, obliterating her competition as well as the women’s-only 10 mile world record of 52:11 set here last year by Russia’s Lidya Grigoriyeva.
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“chasingKIMBIA” to begin it’s second season

Posted February 16th, 2007 at 8:30 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Marathons

“chasingKIMBIA”, the web-based documentary series which chronicled the training and racing of a small group of mostly Kenyan athletes, has opened its second season.

In 2006 the documentary followed seven athletes as they prepared to run in the World Marathon Majors events in Chicago and New York. Most of the footage was shot in Boulder, Colo., where they were training at the time under coach Dieter Hogen.

For the 2007 season, the focus shifts to Iten, Kenya, as the athletes prepare for their spring marathons, including Boston, London and Rotterdam.

“The goal of ‘chasingKIMBIA’ is to promote the elite athletes in our sport,” said Tom Ratcliffe, the athlete agent who runs the project. “Running fans know the Kenyans are successful, but most can’t name more than a handful of athletes. At the major marathons the spectators clap idly as the lead pack runs by. With this project we’re hoping to connect the athletes with the fans.”
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