Marathon Results

There are not many details of the marathon today in the newspaper, but here are the important details.Front runners

First and second place were men from Kenya and third place was a Mexican man. First place was Reuben Chesang with a time of 2:22’11”. Second place was Mark Chepses Kipkosgei. His time, as well as the third place time by Ranulfo Sánchez, was not reported in the newspaper. The race for first and second place was decided in the final sprint. With just 30 meters to go the winner pulled ahead of second place.

A lady from Mexico City won the women’s race. Penélope Lona Guerrero also won this event in 1990 and 1991. The fastest local female runner, Carmen Méndez, had a time of 3:13’01”, which is a new record by more than 3.5 minutes.

The fastest local man was Jorge Joel González Pérez with a time of 2:38’16”. That is about 10 minutes slower than the current record.

The attendance was down according to the newspaper article as well. There were only 217 participants in the marathon, which is down from the previous year’s 314.Race Start

According to the newspaper article, the runners were not very well attended by the police and volunteers. Apparently there were several intersections where runners had to navigate the traffic on their own. Some runners had to run on busy stretches of road without volunteer or police intervention for the traffic. I did not experience that in the 5K. We were well attended. But it is much easier to cover the shorter distance when all of the runners will be within 30 minutes of one another. For a marathon distance you have runners on the roads for 5+ hours. To cover every intersection and provide escort to 200 runners would be difficult. Though I have experienced intersection crossings where the police were clueless and stopped the runners to let traffic pass. But not in this race.

I leave you with the quote from the winner:

“I am very excited to win this marathon for the second time. It was very difficult yet at the same time exciting in the final sprint when I had the good fortune to overtake my compatriot Mark Chepses. The time on the clock is high, but this is due to the weather in the area [it was 72 at race start] as well as the fact that there was not much pressure given by the other runners.”

[Estoy muy emocionado por ganar por segunda ocasión este maratón. Fue muy difícil y a la vez emocionante, sobre todo en el momento del sprint final, cuando tuve la fortuna de superar a mi compatriota Mark Chepses. El tiempo que cronometré es alto, pero eso se debe al clima de la región, además de que no hubo mucha presión de los demás corredores.]

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