Eutrusca
07-11-2005, 15:32
COMMENTARY: As a former long-distance runner, the NYC Marathon is rather like the holy grail to me. I never got to run in it, although I wanted to very badly. This particular race went right down to the wire. Awesome competition, and a metaphor for how to live your life ( read the bolded quote at the bottom of this post )!
A Marathon Turns Into a Sprint,
and a Kenyan Wins It by Just a Step (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/sports/sportsspecial/07men.html?th&emc=th)
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7027/marathonrunners3yk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By JERE LONGMAN
Published: November 7, 2005
After running 26 miles without deciding yesterday's New York City Marathon, Paul Tergat of Kenya and Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa began a grimly beautiful sprint to the finish.
With grand desperation, the two men ran shoulder to shoulder for the final 385 yards in Central Park. Tergat, the elegant world-record holder, clenched his teeth in frantic determination, while Ramaala, the awkward defending champion, opened his mouth wide as if to shout or to gulp for oxygen to fuel his tired legs.
Tergat drew ahead, then Ramaala, two exhausted men running at top speed, or whatever speed they could summon after more than two hours in the heat and humidity on a course made rugged by hills and bridges. Even with 25 yards left, there was no clear winner, only a great struggle between two men who would deliver the closest race in this marathon's 36-year history.
"It's not nice," Ramaala, 33, said later of the pained stretch run. "You don't enjoy it."
On and on they ran, one man unable to separate himself from the other. In the final yards, Ramaala gave a hopeful lunge, leaning for the tape more like a sprinter than a marathoner, but he had begun to stagger, and in that last moment, after all those miles, Tergat crossed the line first in 2 hours 9 minutes 30 seconds. A stride behind, Ramaala reached the finish officially one second later and collapsed to the pavement in heartbreakingly narrow defeat.
"I know the feeling," Tergat, 36, said, having lost the 10,000 meters at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, by nine-hundredths of a second, caught at the tape by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia. Afterward Tergat consoled Ramaala against despondency, telling him: "Take it easy. This is sport."
The victory would prove as redemptive as it was exhilarating for Tergat. Although he holds the marathon world record of 2:04:55, set in Berlin in 2003, and has won five world cross-country titles, he has known a career of aching defeat. Twice he finished second on the track to Gebrselassie at the Olympics and three times he had to settle for the runner-up spot at marathons in London and Chicago before gaining his first victory with the world record.
He did not think of Gebrselassie, his old nemesis, in the final sprint yesterday, Tergat said, noting that past failure was a source of motivation for him, not intimidation. "I was not afraid," he said.
And so, with his long, graceful stride, Tergat won his second major marathon, by a margin that has not been nearly so thin in New York since 1994, when German Silva of Mexico made a premature final turn into Central Park in the 26th mile, doubled back, and defeated his countryman Benjamin Paredes by two seconds. Tergat's exact clocking was 2:09:29.90; Ramaala's exact time was 2:09:30.22.
Meb Keflezighi of the United States, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist, who finished second in New York last year, took third yesterday in 2:09:56. Despite losing a month of training because of injury, Keflezighi hung with Tergat and Ramaala until his calves began to seize up in the 25th mile.
Another naturalized American, Abdihakim Abdirahman, took fifth in 2:11:24. These were the fastest two times posted by runners from the United States this year, and the first time since 1993 that two Americans finished among the top five men in New York.
Yesterday's race was mesmerizing in its sense of pure competition. It had surges and counterattacks, marvelous improvisation and a finish that extended two of the world's great distance runners into unexpected anaerobic gallops. Despite the frenetic ending, Tergat prevailed in large part because of patience.
Coming off the Queensboro Bridge at Mile 16, as the race headed up First Avenue amid the swelling noise of the crowd, Ramaala ran Mile 17 in a blistering 4:22. This was akin to the break in a game of pool. Ramaala wanted to scatter the field, and he succeeded. Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, a training partner of Tergat's, took off with Ramaala, trying to control the pace and let Tergat gradually work his way back to the front. Keflezighi thought Ramaala's break was hasty and audacious, but he could not afford to let the defending champion draw away. Soon, he again drew even with the two Africans.
At one point Tergat contentedly drifted behind the leaders by more than 30 yards. There were more than nine miles remaining. Many a runner has been lured by the siren call of the crowd on First Avenue only to crash later in the hills of Central Park.
"I wanted to run my race," Tergat said. "I didn't want to run anybody else's race. I knew there was a long way to go."
NOTE: Run your own race. You'll be glad you did!
[ This article is two pages long. To read the rest of the article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/sports/sportsspecial/07men.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th). ]
A Marathon Turns Into a Sprint,
and a Kenyan Wins It by Just a Step (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/sports/sportsspecial/07men.html?th&emc=th)
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7027/marathonrunners3yk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By JERE LONGMAN
Published: November 7, 2005
After running 26 miles without deciding yesterday's New York City Marathon, Paul Tergat of Kenya and Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa began a grimly beautiful sprint to the finish.
With grand desperation, the two men ran shoulder to shoulder for the final 385 yards in Central Park. Tergat, the elegant world-record holder, clenched his teeth in frantic determination, while Ramaala, the awkward defending champion, opened his mouth wide as if to shout or to gulp for oxygen to fuel his tired legs.
Tergat drew ahead, then Ramaala, two exhausted men running at top speed, or whatever speed they could summon after more than two hours in the heat and humidity on a course made rugged by hills and bridges. Even with 25 yards left, there was no clear winner, only a great struggle between two men who would deliver the closest race in this marathon's 36-year history.
"It's not nice," Ramaala, 33, said later of the pained stretch run. "You don't enjoy it."
On and on they ran, one man unable to separate himself from the other. In the final yards, Ramaala gave a hopeful lunge, leaning for the tape more like a sprinter than a marathoner, but he had begun to stagger, and in that last moment, after all those miles, Tergat crossed the line first in 2 hours 9 minutes 30 seconds. A stride behind, Ramaala reached the finish officially one second later and collapsed to the pavement in heartbreakingly narrow defeat.
"I know the feeling," Tergat, 36, said, having lost the 10,000 meters at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, by nine-hundredths of a second, caught at the tape by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia. Afterward Tergat consoled Ramaala against despondency, telling him: "Take it easy. This is sport."
The victory would prove as redemptive as it was exhilarating for Tergat. Although he holds the marathon world record of 2:04:55, set in Berlin in 2003, and has won five world cross-country titles, he has known a career of aching defeat. Twice he finished second on the track to Gebrselassie at the Olympics and three times he had to settle for the runner-up spot at marathons in London and Chicago before gaining his first victory with the world record.
He did not think of Gebrselassie, his old nemesis, in the final sprint yesterday, Tergat said, noting that past failure was a source of motivation for him, not intimidation. "I was not afraid," he said.
And so, with his long, graceful stride, Tergat won his second major marathon, by a margin that has not been nearly so thin in New York since 1994, when German Silva of Mexico made a premature final turn into Central Park in the 26th mile, doubled back, and defeated his countryman Benjamin Paredes by two seconds. Tergat's exact clocking was 2:09:29.90; Ramaala's exact time was 2:09:30.22.
Meb Keflezighi of the United States, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist, who finished second in New York last year, took third yesterday in 2:09:56. Despite losing a month of training because of injury, Keflezighi hung with Tergat and Ramaala until his calves began to seize up in the 25th mile.
Another naturalized American, Abdihakim Abdirahman, took fifth in 2:11:24. These were the fastest two times posted by runners from the United States this year, and the first time since 1993 that two Americans finished among the top five men in New York.
Yesterday's race was mesmerizing in its sense of pure competition. It had surges and counterattacks, marvelous improvisation and a finish that extended two of the world's great distance runners into unexpected anaerobic gallops. Despite the frenetic ending, Tergat prevailed in large part because of patience.
Coming off the Queensboro Bridge at Mile 16, as the race headed up First Avenue amid the swelling noise of the crowd, Ramaala ran Mile 17 in a blistering 4:22. This was akin to the break in a game of pool. Ramaala wanted to scatter the field, and he succeeded. Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, a training partner of Tergat's, took off with Ramaala, trying to control the pace and let Tergat gradually work his way back to the front. Keflezighi thought Ramaala's break was hasty and audacious, but he could not afford to let the defending champion draw away. Soon, he again drew even with the two Africans.
At one point Tergat contentedly drifted behind the leaders by more than 30 yards. There were more than nine miles remaining. Many a runner has been lured by the siren call of the crowd on First Avenue only to crash later in the hills of Central Park.
"I wanted to run my race," Tergat said. "I didn't want to run anybody else's race. I knew there was a long way to go."
NOTE: Run your own race. You'll be glad you did!
[ This article is two pages long. To read the rest of the article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/sports/sportsspecial/07men.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th). ]