Cheruiyot of fire: Kenyan takes lead role in Marathon

Evans Cheruiyot has a track record any elite marathon runner would envy - two races, two titles.

Cheruiyot won Sunday's Bank of America Chicago Marathon in impressive fashion. The Kenyan cut nearly three minutes off his personal best time by finishing the race in 2:06:25, well ahead of countryman David Mandago, who was 1:12 behind. Cheruiyot's Chicago debut time was the ninth-fastest finish in Chicago Marathon history.

In the women's race, Lidiya Grigoryeva became the second Russian woman to win the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:27:17. Like Cheruiyot, she made sure down the stretch that it wasn't a close race, finishing well ahead of her closest competitor, fellow Russian Alevtina Biktimirova (2:29:32).

Both runners will take home $100,000 for their victories. Cheruiyot added to his payday by earning a $40,000 bonus for a sub-2:08 clocking. He continued the streak of Kenyan dominance as the sixth consecutive Kenyan to win the Chicago Marathon.

What made both performances noteworthy is that they did it despite less than ideal weather conditions for marathon running. It was warm on Sunday, but nothing like last year when marathon officials had to cancel the race 3 hours into it because of record high heat and humidity.

At start time Sunday, it was 65 degrees and the humidity was 73 percent. By 9:30 a.m., the temperature had risen to 78 degrees, but the humidity had dropped to 41 percent. Race organizers later raise dthe runner alert system to red when the temperature hit 84 degrees at 11:30 a.m.

"It was an extremely good day," said executive race director Carey Pinkowski, who said he didn't get to watch much of the race because he was in an incident command center, monitoring the operational aspects of the event. "What we took from 2007 we used to our advantage this year."

Regardless of conditions, the men ran out to a fast pace, with a group of runners setting the tone, all Kenyans. The men's pack then broke up during the 12th mile with Cheruiyot, Mandago and Emmanuel Mutai taking command. At the half-marathon mark, they were running faster than the course-record pace (1:02:47).

Talking to each other about picking the pace, Cheruiyot and Mandago decided to make it a two-man race, pulling away from Mutai by mile 18. Cheruiyot, though, decided enough was enough. He made his move at mile 24 and distanced himself from Mandago with a nice kick that propelled him to the win.

His previous marathon victory was at the Milano City Marathon in December 2007, when he ran a 2:09:16.

"I tried my best, and I am happy," Cheruiyot said. "I was feeling like I wanted to push the pace."

Mandago, who has won five marathons but had never run one of the World Marathon Majors before, just wasn't able to counter his move.

"I tried to go with him, but it was impossible," Mandago said. "I was very tired."

Rounding out the top five male finishers were Tim Cherigat of Kenya (2:11:39), Martin Lauret (2:15:10) of the Netherlands and Mutai (2:15:36).

he top U.S. runner was Mike Reneau, who grew up in Wisconsin and now lives in Michigan. Reneau, 30, ran 2:16:20, good for sixth place.

The women's race moved at a slower pace. Running 56 days after she won the Olympic gold medal at Beijing, Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania was the prerace favorite along with Ethiopian Berhane Adere, who was looking to capture her third consecutive Chicago Marathon title.

While the pace was at 1:16:03 at mid-race, Biktimirova and Grigoryeva, along with Bezunesh Bekele of Ethiopia, emerged as the front-runners.

By the 15-mile mark, the Russians wanted to settle this race among themselves and left Bekele behind. Biktimorova did some hard work for the next few miles and led for one stretch. But Grigoryeva, the 2007 Boston Marathon champion, made her move with a 5:14 timing in mile 21 to surge ahead for good.

"The race developed slowly today, which worked in my favor," Grigoryeva said via a translator. "The pace started picking up. I was very confident in my speed. That played a big role in my race."

Biktimorova felt Grigoryeva's speed was the deciding factor the end.

"Lydia is much faster than me in the 10,000 meters," said Biktimirova, through a translator, "so I knew it would be hard to catch her."

Rounding out the top five after Biktimirova and Grigoryeva were Kiyoko Shimahara of Japan (2:30:19), Tomescu-Dita (2:30:57) and American Desiree Davila (2:31:33). Davila is a San Diego native and now lives in Michigan, where she is a member of the Hanson-Brooks Distance Project. Her goal was a 2:32 and she set a personal best.

"I wanted to race smart," said Davila, who adjusted her time goal due to the weather forecast. "If you have patience, it doesn't hurt you later. I learned so much from the (U.S. Olympic) trials. Instead of running with people (near the end), I ran by people, which is good."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=242218">Images from the Chicago Marathon </a></li> </ul> <h2>Related links</h2> <ul class="moreWeb"> <li><a href="http://results.chicagomarathon.com/">Searchable race results </a></li> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=242264">Kenyans extend amazing streak <span class="date">[10/12/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>