Bizuneh Takes Dallas Half Marathon

I knew it back when he called Lost Boy Lost Boy. The man is a blackish beast.

what about results from the full marathon? you got those?

Unofficial results posted at onlineraceresults.com

http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php

Not sure if that link will work -- I had to search by the race name "White Rock Marathon"

the results say he was second.

They also put him under "63 flat".

Scott Simmons great coaching.

He's da best!Congrats to Fasil!

Aresyouforreals wrote:

Scott Simmons great coaching.

Le'sseehere ...

The way I see it, Cabada spanked Ritz, Hartman and Torres in the marathon. Now Fasil comes along and posts a better half marathon than Hartman, which would also cover E. Torres.

Looks like Fernando and Fasil are taking care of business! Way to go guys!

Since moving to west virginia bizzy has run 22:20? for 8k (pretty fast), made the us team for japan and he finished second on his leg, ran a marathon in 2:18 and was second in the us 5k. not bad for a guy with no style (sorrybissy but keep the shoes)

Biz lives in Bristol, Tennessee...not WV. He is now training and living in Flagstaff, AZ at the high altitude distance training center. He has shown marked improvement; even that 2:18 was ran after going through the 20 mile mark at 2:11.50 pace (he hit the wall). His official finishing time in Dallas for the 1/2 marathon is 1:02.59. I believe that with his improvement and Scott Simmons coaching him, Biz can run sub-2:10 and has an outside shot at the olympic marathon team in '08....bump...I'm gonna go eat a Turkey Sandwich.

Quote: Since moving to west virginia bizzy has run 22:20? for 8k (pretty fast), made the us team for japan and he finished second on his leg, ran a marathon in 2:18 and was second in the us 5k. not bad for a guy with no style (sorrybissy but keep the shoes)

I think he meant the western part of Virginia (near the TN border).

Regardless - Biz is running awesome right now. That's quite a tandem with him and Cabada.

Mo Vaughn wrote:even that 2:18 was ran

First off, the Dallas White Rock Marathon, Half and Relays make up an awesome event. The organization is generally great, the volunteers are amazing and police force controlling the course work very hard. I don't wan't to take anything away from this.

However, incorporating multiple events into a marathon is challenging, and White Rock has hiccups like any other. The half marathon course is a bit convoluted, and my best guess is that many half marathoners ran the wrong way (or were directed the wrong way) and that some marathoners even ran the wrong way.

I do know that any half marathoner who was directed to the marathon finish ran 400 meters shorter than if he/she went to the half marathon finish in the final 1.5 miles.

I am not sure if Fasil and Valentine, and/or any of the other top male finishers went towards the marathon finish. But I do know for sure that the 3rd place finisher in the marathon, followed me to the half marathon finish (as he was directed) and thus ran an extra 75-80 seconds. In fact, when I directed him towards the organizers in the chute, he was quite distressed. I think some people forget that this is the livelihood of some of these professional runners. I tried to make sure the organizers understood he was directed the wrong way.

There were no signs directing half vs. marathon runners at the last diversion (past the 25 mile mark). There were volunteers yelling, who in general were awesome, but at this intersection it was definitely not enough. I was pleased he was given his much-deserved 3rd place finish regardless, although his time reflected (2:18:11) is slower than he actually ran for a marathon (~2:16:55).

The reverse happened to the top 2 women in the half, who did finish in the wrong place, running shorter than those who finished in the supposed correct spot.

Furthermore, I realize that online mapping tools are not that accurate, however the race as some of us ran it was about a half mile long. Even if the mapping tools are not that accurate, a direct comparison with last year's half route shows that this year was 0.4 miles longer than in 2005.

This doesn't explain my absolutely horrible performance personally, but it didn't help!

Finally, Fasil is a bad ass. To run 1:03 (or 1:04 if they went the shorter way) over that route yesterday in windy conditions (15-20 mph) was just amazing. I agree with the sentiment that he will be a great road racer, I venture he already is! Frankly, I would not be suprised if he is one of the top 5 runners in the country in the coming years over longer distances. Fasil, Valentine and the other 2 runners in the lead group were exciting to watch (albeit briefly)!

sipping on some hatarade, are we??

^^geeze, dude...seriously, if you can understand english, then you can make that turn at the end (maybe a problem for some of the non-english speakers)...i do think that the volunteers were doing a decent (could have been better) job of directing people through the turns but there are just a number of weird intersections that are on the half course...what i didn't understand is the lack of mile markers (wtf?!!!)

I complained about the lack of mile markers LAST YEAR, in the half. I guess they still didn't get it right.

Remember, the half is just there to bring in more $$$$, not for the benefit of the runners.

Even more of joke in this regards is the Fort Worth Cowtown Marathon. There they've added a 5k, 5k kids run, 10k, and a Half-Marathon to the full marathon. They get less than a 1,000 for the marathon, so they've added all the other races to bring in more money, and yet keep the "marathon" name to try to add prestige to the race.

For the record the leaders in the men's half marathon were directed to the appropriate finish. The women't half marathon finishers were misdirected. Fasil and Orare's official time was 1:02.59. Link to article in Dallas morning news detailing the confusion is below...

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/running/stories/121106dnspohalfmarathonlede.3184b2b.html

They ran amazing either way - even moreso that they went the right way. 1:02:59 on that course on that day is an incredible time.

If he is running the US Champs in Houston and it is a good day weather-wise, and he keeps his same fitness, you could see a blazing time on what is a much faster course!