Dominic Ondoro, 26, of Kenya won the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., Sat., June 21, in 2:09:06, breaking the 33-year-old race record of 2:09:37 set by the great Dick Beardsley way back in 1981.
Ondoro finished more than two minutes ahead of his nearest competitor, Betram Keter, 26, also of Kenya, who was second in 2:11:58, only a tick of the watch ahead of Masters runner Christopher Kipyego, 40, of Kenya, who ran 2:11:59 to finish third. Thus Kenya swept the top three places in the race.
Jordan Chipangama, 25, of Zambia was fourth in 2:12:21, Daniel Aschenik, 31, of Ethiopia fifth in 2:13:04, followed by three more Kenyans who took places sixth through eighth – Stephen Muange, 2:13:15, Abraham Chelanga, 2:13:24, and Kimutai Cheruiyot, 2:14:24.
Nicholas Arciniaga, 30, of Flagstaff, Ariz., was the first American finisher as he ran 2:14:31 to place ninth.
In Saturday’s race, Ondoro was with the lead pack until about mile 20, and then he went off on his own to win the race convincingly and shatter Beardsley’s long-standing record. After the finish, he received a congratulatory hug from Beardsley.
To those who are not up on their running history, Dick Beardsley, who’s originally from Minnesota, is best known for the memorable Duel in the Sun with Alberto Salazar in the 1982 Boston Marathon that Salazar won by the slimmest of margins (only two seconds) on a 68-degree day that seemed even warmer due to the bright sun. They ran 2:08:51 and 2:08:53 that day, breaking the previous Boston course record and the American record. Beardsley has subsequently said of that race (and it’s true), “It’s probably one of the few sporting events where people know who was second as much as who was first.” In a nutshell, Dick Beardsley was a great runner, and the fact his Grandma’s Marathon record survived this long is testament to that. He is, incidentally, the only man to have run 13 consecutive personal bests in the marathon and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for so doing.
After Ondoro broke his record on Saturday, Beardsley said, "It stood a long time and I have said this for 20-plus years, someday it will be broken and I want to be one of the first people to congratulate that person -- and (getting emotional) I was able to do that and that was pretty neat and pretty special for me."
Saturday on the shores of Lake Superior, the women’s winner in the Grandma’s Marathon was also a Kenyan, as Pasca Myers (she’s married to an American) ran 2:33:45 to finish almost exactly a minute ahead of Brianne Nelson, 33, of Golden, Colo., who ran 2:34:44.
Sarah Kiptoo, last year’s winner and the race recordholder, finished third in 2:34:55, and Lauren Jimison, 23, of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., was fourth in 2:35:19.
Myers, who is married to Denny Myers, her former coach at Rend Lake Community College in Ina, Ill., when she first came to this country, gave Pasca some cogent advice on husbanding her energy on Saturday – he told her, “Run your own race.”
She did, choosing to ignore the faster early pace of the leaders and running a steady pace of her own from start to finish to win in what was her personal best time.
“I couldn’t worry about what the other runners were doing,” she said afterwards. “I knew if I stuck to my pace and ran my (best) time, I’d be fine. All you can do is run your best. I ran my own race.”
Pasca Myers, who's 27, had run 2:34:24 last year in finishing fifth in this race. It was a race in which Sarah Kiptoo took advantage of the cool temperature and a tailwind to reach the halfway point in 1:11:31 and then went on to win in a race record 2:26:32.
After her victory Saturday, Pasca said, “I knew what to expect after last year, so when the runners took off, I let them go. My goal was my time, not my place … I knew I’d eventually catch up to most of them. I passed a lot of ladies. I just kept pushing.”
At 10 kilometers Kiptoo was third, behind Ethiopia’s Almaz Negede and last year’s runner-up Doreen Kitaha of Kenya. Myers was a distant seventh, 2½ minutes behind.
At 20 miles Negede still led, but Myers was only 30 seconds back as Kiptoo had dropped back.
Negede would eventually fade all the way back to 12th place as Myers ran on to victory. Brianne Nelson would stage a late push to pass Kiptoo for second.
Kiptoo, who's 24, had said in interviews before this year’s race that she wasn’t in shape to break her race record. That was evident to her from her training, her times were slower, plus she was experiencing soreness in her lower back.
After finishing third on Saturday, she said, “Last year I felt very good. I came out very fast and maintained it. This year, Pasca just kept it going. You could tell. She was very strong. I want to come back next year and break the record again, but I have to train very hard.”
Pasca Myers, who was Pasca Cheruiyot before she got married, started her running career in America, not Kenya, when she attended Rend Lake Community College in Ina, Ill., after coming over here from Kenya and her coach was … Denny Myers. Later she attended Florida State University, where she competed at distances from 3000 to 10,000 meters.
Pasca and Denny lost track of each other, until Pasca, who plans on going into nursing now that she has graduated from Florida State, wound up in Minnesota, only two hours from Iowa, where Denny is now the track coach at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where they now live. Matrimony soon followed.
Last year’s Grandma’s Marathon was the first marathon for Pasca, and now she seems to be a natural for the event.
Grandma’s Marathon is a point-to-point race that starts in Two Harbors, Minn., and runs along the shores of Lake Superior to Duluth, Minn. This was the 38th edition of the race, originally named after the Grandma’s restaurant chain; thus the record Dominic Ondoro broke on Saturday was set by Dick Beardsley only five years after this race first saw the light of day!
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