NOTES : Skah Wins 5K Men’s Race; O’Sullivan Takes Women’s Division

Two-time world cross-country champion Kahlid Skah of Morocco won the Rogaine 5K/Los Angeles with a time of 13:28, narrowly missing the world best of 13:26 set by Yobes Ondeiki. This was Skah’s first race in the United States.

“I was using this race to train for this year’s world cross-country championships,” Skah said. “Luckily, the weather was great and we were able to finish before it really warmed up.”

Skah is also the coach for Dacha Driss, who ran with John Treacy in the lead during the first half of the main event, the Los Angeles Marathon. Driss finished fifth.

In the 5K, Frank O’Mara of Ireland, who won a similar race in Chicago in October, finished second with a time of 13:35. John Gregorek of Seekonk, Mass., was third.

Former U.S. Olympians Jim Spivey, Doug Padilla and Steve Scott finished 10th, 11th and 21st, respectively.

Sonia O’Sullivan won the women’s division of the 5K with a time of 15:24. O’Sullivan, a two-time NCAA indoor 5,000-meter champion, graduated from Villanova last summer. Sylvia Mosqueda of Alhambra was second and Annette Peters of Eugene, Ore., was third.

Darcy Arreola of Canoga Park, a member of the 1,500-meter U.S world championship team, finished 10th. Kathy Johnson, 1984 U.S Olympic gymnast, was 17th.

Fred Lebow, the 59-year-old race director for the New York Marathon, was 51st in the 5K. What makes that feat impressive is the fact that Lebow has a brain tumor and has been undergoing chemotherapy.

“My goal is to build myself back up to where I can run in a marathon,” Lebow said. “I hope to run in the New York Marathon this November.”

Lebow’s next race will be the Siberia Marathon on Aug. 1. “I plan to run in half of that one.”

If he completes the New York race, it will be his 69th marathon.

Jim Knaub, the winner in the wheelchair division, had a simple explanation for how he broke the course record. “Early in the race I motioned for one of the guys behind me to move ahead of me so I could draft them for a while. No one did, so I decided to forget them all and leave them behind.”

Connie Hansen, the women’s wheelchair winner, found the course to be difficult. “This is the toughest course I’ve been on. It is a very rough road from the traffic and there are a lot of hills on Sunset (Boulevard).”

Each of the elite runners in the marathon bring their own special liquid that they feel best keeps them hydrated while they run the race. To make sure he grabbed the right bottle at each water station, Treacy had the flag of Ireland taped to it. This presented a problem.

“The flags they put on the water bottles were too long. The first couple of times I tried to take a drink, I almost poked my eye out.”

Treacy had no complaints about the weather. “I arrived here on Wednesday and it was 86 degrees. I almost had a heart attack when I saw how hot it was. So that night I knelt beside my bed and said a few prayers. Obviously, they worked.”

Ramilia Burangulova, the women’s second-place finisher, had already planned how she will spend some of her $40,000 in prize money. “I will buy a lot of presents for my 5-year-old son,” she said. “He has always wanted a RoboCop type of mechanical robot. I have never been able to afford to get him one before.”

The first American women to finish was Mary J. Button of Los Angeles. She finished in 2:56:41, good for 26th place.

In the men’s race, Alfredo Vigueras of Santa Ana was ninth.

It took 10 minutes for those at the back of the pack to reach the starting line at the beginning of the race. It was so bunched together at some places that the competitors had to walk until the pack dispersed.

Almost every group of runners passing the start line chanted “Ali, Ali,” in honor of former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, who was standing on the starter’s podium.