Mexico’s Cruz Best of Foreign Favorites in Half Marathon

Area road race promoters have this thing about foreign runners.

Last spring, Tim Murphy bolstered the Carlsbad 5,000 with three Soviet Olympic medalists. Now comes the America’s Finest City Home Federal Half Marathon, and race director Neil Finn also has gone abroad for name athletes.

This time, the headliner won’t have to cross the Bering Strait to get here. Alejandro Cruz need only cross the border.

The Mexican runner is using the AFC to tune up for the Oct. 29 Old Style Marathon in Chicago. Cruz was a surprise entrant in last year’s Chicago marathon and even more of a surprise at race’s end, finishing first in 2:08.57, a Mexican record.

Cruz is one of three Mexicans entered in the 12th AFC. He will be pushed by countrymen Carlos Rivas, who last December won the San Diego International Marathon in 2:12:08 (6 1/2 minutes ahead of second) and Martin Mondragon, winner of the 1988 Los Angeles Marathon (2:10:14).

And Kenya’s Michael Musyoki said he will use the AFC in his continued comeback from a 1986 stress fracture of the pelvis.

Musyoki won the bronze medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the 10,000 meters. After that and before his injury, Musyoki “was winning everything on the road in the United States,” Finn said.

Musyoki last ran in the Asbury Park (N.J.) 10K two weeks ago and finished fourth at 29:29.

“That race was especially humid,” Finn said. “Usually runners never stop for liquid during a 10K, but in New Jersey they were all stopping at every station. So (judging by his finish), Musyoki’s in decent shape.”

But it is unknown whether Musyoki, or anyone else, is in good enough shape to challenge Cruz.

“I fully expect him to win,” said Rich Castro, Cruz’s U.S.-based agent. “And I’d like to see him break the course record.”

That might be difficult. Kirk Pfeffer ran 1:02:55 in 1981 and is the only runner to complete the AFC in less than 1:03:00.

If Cruz is to challenge Pfeffer’s mark, the weather will have to cooperate. The AFC has the reputation of being a very tough race for two reasons: One, it is usually run in high humidity, and two, runners face a long downhill stretch between about two and five miles. The downhill pushes the runners (many set personal records over the first 10 kilometers) but leaves them with little energy for the final two miles, a climb from downtown San Diego into Balboa Park.

The National Weather Service predicts humidity between 83-88% Sunday morning, with the sun obscured by clouds and a temperature of around 68 degrees at the start.

Cruz considers himself a strong downhill runner, but the relative cool may be of little aid. Frank Plasso of Las Vegas, a seeded runner who will compete in his first AFC, said it is more demanding to run in humid but cool San Diego than it is to run in the desert, where the temperature often surpasses 100 degrees.

“It’s cooler, but it’s also humid, and you actually sweat a lot more there than you do (in the desert).

Some runners, however, have used the trying conditions at the AFC the way high school football coaches use hell week to raise a team’s fitness.

Pfeffer, for instance, went on to win the Philadelphia Distance Classic in 1:02:15 after his 1981 AFC victory. He then ran in the New York Marathon and led eventual winner Bill Rogers for 22 miles before finishing second with a lifetime best of just over 2:10. Marty Froelick, the 1987 AFC champ (1:04.31), used the San Diego race as a springboard to the Twin Cities Marathon later that fall, when his finish of 2:10:59 was one of the fastest by a U.S. man in two years.

“For some people it can tear them down,” Finn said. “For others it’s a real boon.”

The one nationally recognized local runner scheduled to participate is Charlotte Thomas, who was on the U.S. women’s World Cup marathon team that placed second to the Soviets this year in Milan, Italy.

Thomas will not have a true home-course advantage. She has been doing consulting work in Baltimore for the past several weeks and has had to do her training there. Her best finish in a half-marathon was a 1:15:26 last year in the Philadelphia Distance Classic.

“I certainly hope to better that,” she said. “I’m in much better shape now than when I ran in Philadelphia.”

The $6,220 prize purse will be distributed this way: $1,310 goes to the winners of each the men’s and women’s races. Second through seventh places earn $700, $500, $400, $200 and $100 (for both sixth and seventh).

Late entries will be accepted today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the San Diego Marriott on West Harbor Drive.