KOSKEI LOWERS HIS OWN WORLD RECORD!
Sunday, Dec. 22, at the second annual Pleasanton Double, on a day that dawned frigidly cold but soon warmed dramatically from the benevolent rays of the sun in a cloudless sky, Julius Koskei (pronounced Kos-Kay) broke his own world record in the Double Road Race by seven seconds. How fitting that the man who’s emerged as the star of the Double would get his second record on the very same course and at the same place where the Double was born almost exactly a year earlier.
At Pleasanton he might have improved upon the record even more if the opening 10K leg hadn’t started in near freezing temperatures at 8:15 in the morning before the rising sun burnt off the morning chill.
Originally he had hoped to run the 10K in about 29 minutes flat and come back to run the 5K in something between 14:15 and 14:30. But due to the cold at the start of the race, he realized after only a mile or so it would not be possible to achieve his objective.
“After a mile I knew it was not possible (to run 29 minutes flat). It was too cold and my body was stiff,” he said afterwards.
A short, slight, slender man with long legs for his 5’5” height, he scaled back his expectations accordingly, running the first two miles in a lead group of three with Ethiopian Tesfaye Alemayehu (pronounced Tes-fie Al-a-my-yo), who now lives in Antioch, Calif., and Koskei’s fellow Kenyan, Charles Matheri. Then Matheri dropped back and it was Koskei and Alemayehu, who are old but friendly rivals, on their own.
At the end of the first lap of the two-lap course, Koskei was pushing the pace with the taller Ethiopian gliding along behind him, yet seemingly under some duress to hold the pace.
Alemayehu would hold on for another mile, but then the quadriceps strain that had forced him to drop out at 21 miles of the California International Marathon two weeks earlier began to re-surface. He let Koskei go.
Now on his own, Koskei pushed on to finish the 10K in 29:45:20 – three seconds faster than he had run the 10K in the Indianapolis Double when he set the world record.
Alemayehu would finish the 10K in 30:26:00, almost 46 second behind Koskei, with Daniel Tapia, 27, of Prunedale, Calif., in the Salinas area, finishing third in 31:14:71. The second American finisher at this year’s Boston Marathon, Tapia is a very good runner, but he was never with the leaders on this day.
At Indianapolis Julius Koskei had run the concluding 5K leg of the Double in 14:43. So after his opening 10K in Pleasanton, all he would have to do to break his world record is run 14:46 for the 5K. No ordinary challenge, especially after running a 10K, but then he’s no ordinary runner.
He and Alemayehu had no problems recovering after the 10K – and later they both agreed, “The fitter you are, the quicker you recover.”
In the 5K, run at temperatures perhaps 20-25 degrees warmer than at the start of the 10K, Koskei went off the starting line hard, with Alemayehu going with him. They were together for about 1 1/2 miles, before the 28-year-old Ethiopian, wary of re-injuring his right quadriceps, backed off.
Koskei drove onward and had no difficulty meeting his target of running 14:46 or faster. He would finish the 5K in 14:38:81, giving him an aggregate time of 44:24:01 (his previous record had been 44:31:09), although he admitted he really had to push the 5K because he couldn’t be sure how fast he was going or how he was doing in comparison to his previous record pace.
In setting his new record at Pleasanton, his average pace per mile in the 10K was 4:47 and his average pace per mile in the 5K was 4:43! This provides a clear picture of how fast you have to run to set a record of this caliber.
Alemayehu finished the 5K in 15:02:52, for an aggregate time of 45:28:52, which placed him second overall.
Daniel Tapia would finish third, running the 5K in 15:29:85 to give him an aggregate time of 46:44:56.
After his record performance at Pleasanton II, Julius Koskei now holds several firsts in the Double. Among them: 1) He’s the only one who has run under 30 minutes in the 10K of the Double – and he’s done it twice, 2) He’s the only one who has held two world records, overall, in the Double, and 3) He’s the only man who’s been the overall champion at two different Doubles.
Julius Koskei, who’s 31, lives in Nyaharuru, Kenya with his wife Emily and their two sons, Roger, 8, and Eugene, 5. He was planning to fly back to Kenya, departing on Tues., Dec. 24, and would arrive home on Dec. 26. His one regret: “This is the first Christmas I’m not going to be home.” But no doubt he’ll be returning home bearing gifts for his family – not the least of which is a new world record in the Double … his second!
The women’s winner in the second annual Pleasanton Double was Chantelle Wilder, 28, originally from Canada, now living in Los Gatos, Calif. Previously hampered by injuries, but now rounding into the form which made her a star runner at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., she ran the 10K in 36:13:21 and the 5K in 17:40:00 for an aggregate time of 53:53:21.
This is a new course record for the Pleasanton Double, surpassing the time of 54:03 Tina Kefalas ran last year to win the women’s race at the inaugural Pleasanton Double and set the (then) world record. Wilder’s time also becomes the new Canadian women’s record for the Double – she had previously run 55:14 (37:12/18:01).
The women’s world record in the Double is 52:23:57, held by Sarah Crouch, 24, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., who ran the 10K in 35:02 and the 5K in 17:21 in winning the San Juan Bautista Double on September 28.
Tori Tyler, 26, of Danville, Calif., finished second in the women’s race at Pleasanton with an aggregate time of 55:24:32 (36:48:67/18:35:65). And the third-place finisher was 19-year-old Natalie Dimits of Livermore, Calif. Running the 10K in 38:23:46 and the 5K in 18:59:60 for an aggregate time of 57:23:06, she became the youngest person ever to finish in the top three overall (men’s or women’s division) in any of the Doubles held thus far.
The next Double Road Race will be held Feb 22, 2014 in San Jose, California.
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