Caught in a wave

Want my scalp? Come and get it this Saturday at the Road 2 Hope 10km in Hamilton.  It won’t come too easy though, you’ll need to run under 40 minutes for the 10km.  The 10km starts at 11am.

Another amazing marathon went down this weekend, this time in Frankfurt, Germany.  Wilson Kipsang ran the 2nd fastest marathon ever, recording 2:03:42 and a record 14 guys dipped under the 2:10 mark!

Picking three marathoners from Kenya for the 2012 Olympics is going to be very tough to say the least.  It’s probably never easy for Kenya but this year is just ridiculous.  Some Kenyan marathoners may skip the Olympics in favour of pay checks from big city marathons but you can be assured Kenya will send a stacked team.  The top 20 marathon times run in 2011 are all occupied by Kenyans (including Mutai’s Boston time), and that does not count Abel Kirui who won the Wolrd Championships in hot conditions (hence the slower time). Abel Kirui seems like an obvious choice to me because he won the last two World Championship marathons which are non-paced races, just like the Olympics.  And then you have Patrick Makau and Wilson Kipsang who have run the fastest and second fastest marathons ever while winning Berlin and Frankfurt this year. Plus you have a slew of victors from big marathons this year, winners from Boston (Geoffrey Mutai), London (Emmanuel Mutai), Chicago (Moses Mosop), Rotterdam (Wilson Chebet), Paris (Benjamin Kiptoo), Eindoven, Amsterdam, Otsu, Toronto, Dublin, Prague, … yep, you get the point.  So a guy like Kenneth Mungara who won the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and ran 2:07:36 earlier this year in Prague has no chance of making the Kenyan Olympic team even though he would be a shoe-in for any other country in the World (with the exception of Ethiopia).

There is still NYC marathon and Fukuoka Marathon to be run this year. Gebre will have his hands full trying to defend his NYC title next weekend against Geoffrey Mutai and Emmanuel Mutai (no relation) plus a sub 59 minute half-marathoner Mathew Kisorio is making his debut.

I’ve run 4 times since the marathon, 5km, 7km, 9km and 11km.  Bet you can guess what distance I have lined up for this afternoon.  So far so good other than my right foot being a little sore (it was my left last year after the marathon) and my legs just feeling weak.  It will be a slow build-up this week and then I’ll get into some real training next week if I feel good.

Happy Hallowe’en