The weather is 41 degrees, and the wind is out of the north. Paula Radcliffe si going for her third win here, and Rita Jeptoo, Geta Wami, Kara Goucher and Kim Smith are looking for great races too….should be a great day for racing…can someone go under 2:20?
Paula Radcliffe is on a roll. She lead the field through the first mile, up the Verrazanno Narrows Bridge in 6:31, then downhill, hitting mile two in 5:21. Radcliffe is already churning up the long blue line of the marathon course.
The wind is very, very tough. Radcliffe hit the first mile in 6:31, mile two in 5:21, mile three in 5;36, mile four in 5:39, mile five in 5:37 and mile six in 5:34. Right behind Radcliffe is Kara Goucher, with Tume, Wami and Jeptoo in attendance. Catherine Ndereba leads the second pack. Radcliffe took the pack, down to Goucher, Tume, Wami, and Jeptoo, in 39:54, her second mile at 5:34 pace, in a row. Radcliffe looks
determined.
Kara Goucher dropped a water bottle early on, muttered a nice expletive, and kept running.
The men’s race started and five Americans were in the lead at the first mile. By mile two, passed in 10:39, with Nate Jenkins, James Carney, Josh Rohatinsky all up front. The second mile was hit in 5:13. Rohatinsky ran a 1:02 half marathon at the San Jose RNR Half Marathon on October 5, 2008.
Runblogrun.com encourages you to check out the sites of Shooting Star Media, Inc.: American Track & Field (www.american-trackandfield.com), Athletes Only (www.atf-athlete.com), California Track & Running News (www.caltrack.com), MIssouri Runner & Triathlete (www.morunandtri.com), Latinos Corriendo(www.latinoscorriendo.com), Coaching
Athletics Quarterly (www.coachingathleticsq.com), and USATF Fast Forward (www.usatf.org). All of the above magazine websites can be found at RunningNetwork.com (www.runningnetwork.com).