Grandma's Marathon Finish

Hot and humid. The 'B' Kenyans cruised it in to collect their pay checks.

The Garry Bjorklund half marathon was a better race.

Looks like Raabe had a good day.

Both the marathon winners are American.

Joanie ran 1:20:36 in the half. Does that qualify her for another olympic trials?

A half dozen of grandma's elite foreign runners, including the defending champion Lamech Mokono, hit the wall.....

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.at US customs office. He got in on a tourist visa last year, his work visa got held up this year.

Good finish in the women's race as 1st and 2nd were only 6 seconds apart.

A couple of years ago another grandma's winner didn't get to defend as he was killed by an arrow during tribal violence in kenya.

Great race on a really nice course. The whole city comes out and volunteers, I think.

Shame the weather sucked. I was hoping for a PR.

ghost of beardsley wrote:

Joanie ran 1:20:36 in the half. Does that qualify her for another olympic trials?

Not quite:

Event...............\"A\".............\"B\"

Marathon..........2:39:00......2:46:00

Half Marathon....................1:15:00

10,000m (track).................33:00.0

99% humidity at the start, 70s by 10am. A little bit of wind from the front right (inland). A lot of dreams burned up today.

I have to contradict you a little bit:

A half dozen of grandma's elite foreign runners, including the defending champion Lamech Mokono, hit the wall.....

There wasn't much if any "wall hitting" by the "B" Kenyans. These guys will not put out a hard effort if it is going to be slow. There was some serious deal making in the group to slow the pace and cruise in.

Raabe was off the front before the cruise control dropped a gear. Good on him for the p.r. and the nice win.

It frustrates me that less competitive marathons bring in these secondary Kenyans. I say, either bring in the big guns to run fast or leave it to the 2:15 Americans.

[quote]ghost of beardsley wrote:

Both the marathon winners are American.

Joanie ran 1:20:36 in the half. Does that qualify her for another olympic trials?

there is a rule that if you have ever made the olympic team in the marathon, then you have qualified for the trials, so joan benoit has already qualified for every olympic marathon trials for the rest of her life, billy mills, bill rodgers, frank shorter are all forever qualified for the olympic marathon trials.

distance wrote:

I have to contradict you a little bit:

A half dozen of grandma's elite foreign runners, including the defending champion Lamech Mokono, hit the wall.....

There wasn't much if any "wall hitting" by the "B" Kenyans. These guys will not put out a hard effort if it is going to be slow. There was some serious deal making in the group to slow the pace and cruise in.

Raabe was off the front before the cruise control dropped a gear. Good on him for the p.r. and the nice win.

It frustrates me that less competitive marathons bring in these secondary Kenyans. I say, either bring in the big guns to run fast or leave it to the 2:15 Americans.

I just read your posts 73 times, but there was nothing that made sense in there (except the "good job to Raabe" part).

First, these are B string Americans just as much as they are B string Kenyans. The A string for virtually any country (that takes running seriously) is competing at London, Boston, NYC, etc. (if not on the track). As far as deal making... what? WHAT? These guys are so competitive they RACE every long run they do in Kenya. But, you think they come here to job a race? On another note.. no one stopped the 2:!5 Americans from coming. And, if they were there... they would have won (if they had been 2:15 runners on the day). Oh... but maybe you didn't notice that great runners like David Cheruiyot were struggling in the heat and running 2:21?

Lastly, you completely misunderstood the post you were originally responding to.

Hottest race I ever ran. The last four times I've been to Grandma's three of them have been "Black Flag" days. I thought I was smart going out slow. Turned out to be not slow enough. My car said 89F at 11:30 when I got to it.

Nice race for Chris Raabe! What's this guys story?

Lone Wolf the Warrior wrote:

Nice race for Chris Raabe! What's this guys story?

30 Years old

High School at Sauk Rapids, MN

College at North Dakota State

Lives in Washington DC

Previous best of 2:17:01 at 2007 US Olympic Trials, NYC

First American to win since Mark Curp in 1995

First Minnesota native to win since Beardsley repeated in 1982

12th in 2007, 6th in 2008, wins in 2009

Been a long time since we heard the chant of "USA USA" at the finish line.

Looks like training in the DC humidity and heat served him well. Prize money at Grandmas?

I thought Mokono didn't even race because he didn't get his visa in time?

who hah wrote:

Looks like training in the DC humidity and heat served him well. Prize money at Grandmas?

Raabe got $10,000 for first plus $900 time bonus.

Nice - that kind of money should sure attract an "A" field.

great effort raabe - used to race this guy heaps in college always a tough competitor

It was way, way too hot. This would be a great course - in 30 degrees cooler weather (though yesterday I would have settled for clouds). I had to back off big time and still slogged through my 2nd worse time. 36+ minutes off my goal.