RUNNING USA – Mutai, Kipyego Victorious at NYC Half By: Jim Gerweck, Running USA wire

NEW YORK – (March 16, 2014) – What had shaped up as a potential preview of next month’s Virgin London Marathon ended less than halfway through the race and turned into a solo time trial triumph for Geoffrey Mutai at the ninth running of the NYC Half on Sunday, New York City Marathon, showed he’s a master of the Big Apple streets at half the distance as well, as he threw together a string of miles in the 4:30 range to outdistance a stellar field on a chilly (31F) and somewhat breezy morning in Manhattan.

Britain’s Mo Farah, the double World and Olympic champion at 5000 and 10,000 meters, who will face Mutai when he makes his marathon debut in London on April 13, never really got a chance to test himself against the Kenyan, tripping and falling hard during the sixth mile of the race, as the lead pack of eight men raced down the same hill in Central Park that Mutai (right, courtesy NYRR) has ascended in the opposite direction in both his marathon victories. Farah quickly sprang back up and gave chase – “It’s just something that happens in running, no big deal,” he said. “I knew I had to try to make up the gap gradually, but it was hard.”

That’s because, whether by coincidence or plan, Mutai was dropping a 4:25 mile on the field, after they’d run the admittedly hillier section of the point-to-point course nearly 20 seconds a mile slower.

“It was cold, and it took a while for my body to warm up,” he said. I had hoped to run around 59 minutes, and when I saw the 5 kilometer time I knew we had to push to run a fast time.”

Mutai kept the pace fast over the next two miles, down 7^th Avenue through Times Square and then along 42^nd Street into a cold headwind off the Hudson, and in so doing dropped his final companion, countryman Stephen Sambu. For the final five miles down the West Side Highway and beneath the Battery, Mutai looked as nonplussed as someone out for a marathon training tempo run, which the final miles might as well have been for him as he ran to a comfortable 17-second victory in 1:00:50.

Meanwhile Farah was closing down the gap on Sambu, eventually catching him with 800 meters to go and holding off a final counterattack to eke out a one-second margin in 1:01:07. Farah’s chase left him “seeing stars” and so spent he collapsed at the finish, before reviving quickly.

Matt Tegenkamp, winner of the previous two years’ USA 20K titles, made his debut over the slightly longer distance a relatively successful one, placing sixth in 1:02:04. “I came here to get a feel for running a fast race against an international field,” he said. “I really only made one bad decision, letting the lead pack get away,” he said. “So I spent the second half of the race running with the next group through about 10 miles, taking turns setting the pace.”

The women’s race remained competitive longer, as Sally Kipyego, Molly Huddle, and New Yorker Buzunesh Deba, runnerup at last year’s marathon, ran together almost to the nine mile point. The first two were both venturing into uncharted racing territory, and with some trepidation.

“My longest run is 14 miles, so I knew that was cutting it pretty close,” said Kipyego, the 2012 Olympic 10,000 silver medalist. “Overall, I think it went better than I expected. I knew I was going to hurt the last few miles, and I was, but not as bad as I thought it might.”

Huddle, whose longest road race had been a world record-setting run over 12 km last November, concurred, although for her the pain was as bad as she’d feared.

As Kipyego pulled away to a race record 1:08:31 (the event was contested over a new, and some felt more challenging, layout this year), Huddle dropped back and was passed by Deba in the final stretch, 1:08:59 to 1:09:04. “I hoped to run around 69 minutes,” said Huddle, the American record holder for 5,000 meters on the track. “Now I want to run a fast 10,000 at Stanford in April, then concentrate on the 5,000 for the rest of the summer.”

Behind them, some 20,000 runners, the largest field in the event’s history, started in three waves beginning at 7:30 a.m. and continued to stream into the southern tip of Manhattan for hours after the leaders had finished.

 

9th NYC Half

New York, NY, Sunday, March 16, 2014

MEN

 1 Geoffrey Mutai              32 ADID KEN   1:00:50
  2 Mo Farah                    30 NIKE GBR        1:01:07
  3 Stephen Sambu               25      KEN       1:01:08
  4 Juan Luis Barrios           30 NIKE MEX       1:01:46
  5 Aschalew Nigusse            26 AODF ETH    1:01:47
  6 Mengistu Tabor Nebsi        36 WSX  ETH   1:02:04
  6 Matt Tegenkamp              32 NIKE OR      1:02:04
  8 Arne Gabius                 32 NIKE GER         1:02:09
  9 Ikuto Yufu                  22 KOMA JPN         1:02:50
10 Meb Keflezighi              38 NYAC CA         1:02:53
11 Jacob Riley                 26 HBDP MI            1:02:56
12 Takashi Ichida              21      JPN             1:03:11

WOMEN
  1 Sally Kipyego               28 OTC  KEN    1:08:31
  2 Buzunesh Deba               26 NIKE ETH     1:08:59
  3 Molly Huddle                29 SAUC RI          1:09:04
  4 Lisa Stublic                29 NYAC CRO         1:09:36
  5 Caroline Kilel              32 ADID KEN          1:10:00
  6 Diane Nukuri-Johnson        29 ASIC BDI   1:10:09
  7 Desiree Linden              30 HBDP MI         1:11:37
  8 Hilda Kibet                 32 ADID NED          1:11:37
  9 Etaferahu Temesgen          24 WSX  MD   1:11:49
10 Adriana Nelson              34 ASIC CO         1:11:50
11 Askale Merachi              27 WSX  NY         1:12:19
12 Krista Duchene              37 SAUC CAN      1:12:26

 

 RUNNING USA

Find full race results at: https://www.nyrr.org/races-and-events/2014/nyc-half