100% Non BikeY...

Hi All,

Bikey is taking a day off, as we are two days away from the end of the 2009 Elite Marathon season, with Sunday's New York City Marathon on the agenda. So no bike or triathlon news right now, it's all running this week...


The New York City Marathon doesn't have the history of Boston (117 years vs 40 for NYC) or the uber-fast times of Chicago (where 4 marathon world records have been set, including Paula Radcliffe's 2:17 in 2002) but it seems to have an aura about it. It helps that it can afford to attract a great elite field year after year. Paula Radcliffe has won this race 3 times, and is going for number 4 in her return to the marathon. She hasn't run one since NYC a year ago, but has always performed great at this race. She runs from the front, dares the other women to hold on, and outkicks any one who remains near the end. This year she doesn't have too many rivals to worry about, because there have been 5 major female pro withdrawals, so Radcliffe goes into Sunday's race as an overwhelming favorite. Radcliffe has only 2 main competitors including 2009 Boston winner Salina Kosgei. However, Radcliffe has stated that her 2009 win includes breaking the women's race record of 2:22:31. We shall see...


The men's race is noteworthy as well since Ryan Hall is making his NYC marathon debut. He did run 2:09 two years ago in New York City while at the US Olympic Trials but that was a modified Central Park course. So he will be the people's favorite but will be challenged by a very strong mens field. Ryan Hall has a PB and US record of 2:06:17, but that is only the 4th fastest PB in the field, and those other guys have all run faster than that in 2009. Check out this list:
* Jaouad Gharib (Morocco) - ran 2:05 in London this year, silver in Beijing Olympics, 2-time World Marathon Champion
* James Kwambai (Kenya) - ran 2:04:27 in Rotterdam (and finished second!) which makes him the 3rd fastest man all-time, has ran a 59:08 half-marathon less than 2 months ago
* Patrick Makau (Kenya) - ran 2:06 in his marathon debut in April in Rotterdam, is the second fastest half-marathoner of all time (58:52)


There are many other elite men in the race - you can check out the list here. Who will win? Since Ryan Hall has often run well in his major marathons but ultimately has a bad mile or two and falls off the pace, I can't pick him to win. Let's go with Kwambai, who'll use his experience to outlast Makau and Hall. Of course, that means Gharib will win going away...

I didn't talk at all about this month's very frigid Chicago Marathon, which was run about three weeks ago. It included a new course record (and a North American marathon record) of 2:05:41 by Sammy Wanjiru, which is a whole 1 second faster than the previous record. That 1 second was worth an extra $100,000 to Wanjiru, who is widely regarded as the best marathoner in the world today. He won Beijing last year, London this spring, now Chicago in the fall. He also owns the half-marathon world record and has run 2:05 twice this year. Wanjiru also moves to the top of the World Marathon Majors for 2008-09, which will be worth another cool $500,000 for him. It's so sad that he won't run against Gebrselassie (or vice versa) one time so we can see what they could do running against each other. The next step for Wanjiru appears to be a shot at the world record...stay tuned!


The women's winner in Chicago was not pre-race favorite Irina Mikitenko, but a Russian track star, Liliya Shobukhova, hammered the last 2.2 km (apparently running that split in 6:36, faster than Wanjiru did!) to beat Mikitenko by 35 seconds. Apparently, the combination of her track speed (she had world indoor record in the 3000m) and her huge training (regularly runs 250 km a week!) has honed Shobukhova into a future marathon star. Mikitenko can be consoled by her second place finish with the knowledge that she has already won the half-million for the World Marathon Majors for 2008-09 (she also won the 2007-08 segment and leads the 2009-10 segment as well).

I could depress you with some stories about the recent "rash" of marathon deaths that the media likes to discuss, but instead will leave you with a couple of stories to think about. One is a Globe and Mail story about the combination of drinking and running (includes the BeerMile) and the others are from the NY Times (caution: you may need to create a free account to read them). One is about the rash of "slow" runners who are now participating in the marathon. They make a case that 44% of runners in last year's Honolulu Marathon took longer than 6 hours to finish the race, and that keeping roads closed and volunteers out on the course creates headaches and extra costs for race directors. An interesting read. The other one is a fascinating look back at the NYC Marathon in the 1970's where 8- and 9-year-old children ran the marathon in 3-and-a-half hours or less! One of them later ran a 2:38 when he was 15! Ahhh - the days before Nintendo and Xbox, when all kids could do is go outside and run...

That's it for now...