Ethiopians sweep rainy Houston Marathon

Intermittent wind and rain didn’t seem to bother the Ethiopian contingent at the 2013 Houston Marathon. Both the men’s and the women’s races of the half and full marathons were won by Ethiopian runners.

Bazu Worku took control of the marathon, winning comfortably ahead of countryman Teferi Balcha in 2:10:17. Balcha ended up more than two minutes behind.

Worku told reporters after the race through a translator that the rainy conditions definitely effected his speed. “The weather was very bad. We had a problem with a puddle of water on the floor. While we were running on it, it was coming up onto us.”

Worku has run significantly faster, even in rainy conditions, such as his PB in Berlin in 2010, where he clocked a 2:05:25.

The women’s race was won by Merima Mohammed in a time of 2:23:37. The half-marathons where won by Mamitu Daska and Lilesa Feyisa in the women’s and men’s races, respectively. Feyisa was the 2012 marathon winner.

This is the slowest series of winning times in five years, where weather was clearly a factor.

Canada was represented by two of its most prominent distance runners, Matt Loiselle, who ran the full marathon, and Lanni Marchant, who ran the half-marathon.

Loiselle dropped out of the race at some point after the 30K mark. He seemed to be on pace for roughly a 2:17 finish up until that point, running with the first American finisher, Andrew Carlson. He and Carlson split 30K at 1:36:53.

Loiselle, a Toronto based runner, had gone to the flat and fast course in Houston in the hope that he would run the sub-2:15 needed to gain a spot on the 2013 world championship marathon team that heads to Moscow in August.

Loiselle now has a difficult decision to make: quickly turn around and find himself another spring race for another attempt before the cut-off at the end of May, or let it go and focus on the greater goal, which he has indicated is making the 2016 Olympics.

The fact that Loiselle dropped out where he did and splitting well over that magic 2:15 number could suggest that he decided to abandon the race in favour of taking another shot at a sub-2:15 later this spring.

Marchant had a more successful day in Houston, placing seventh in 1:14:49. This will no doubt be a confidence booster after dropping out of the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October. Marchant has already qualified for the Moscow squad with her breakthrough performance last spring in Rotterdam.

Canadian marathoners have had quite a few glorious successes and gut-wrenching failures over the years in Houston. Eric Gillis debuted in Houston, before going on to become an Olympic marathoner. But both Rob Watson and Simon Bairu have had painful blow-ups on the Houston course. And perhaps most this is the place where Sylvia Ruegger set the Canadian women’s marathon record; one that still stands and no doubt was looming in Lanni Marchant’s mind on Sunday.