Kiplagat Chases Glory Anew

It was all a bit bewildering.

Santa Monica Boulevard, Virgil Avenue, Wilshire Boulevard. . . . Where was she and who were all of those people cheering while Lornah Kiplagat ran through a strange city in a strange country, feeling mighty strange, a year ago?

It was a long way from Detmold, Germany, where she logged 180-190 kilometers a week in training on the roads.

It was a longer way from Endoret, her village 400 kilometers from Nairobi in Kenya.

It was her first trip to the United States, and Los Angeles was her first marathon and she was there with one thing in mind.

“My desire was just to finish, to see how a marathon was,” she says. “At first, I hadn’t trained like I was running a marathon. I didn’t expect to win.”

And suddenly she was leading.

And then Nadezhda Ilyina was leading.

How?

It seems little clearer now, a year later.

“I didn’t know I was in front, and then people told me,” she says. “And then I saw I wasn’t in front, and I didn’t see anybody pass me. I didn’t understand this.

“At the 24th mile I saw her, and said, ‘Where did she come from? Well, OK, I’m second and that’s good.’ ”

Second place paid $7,500, and that kind of money goes a long way in a country where the annual per capita income is about $350.

Kiplagat finished in 2 hours 33 minutes 50 seconds, two seconds behind Ilyina, a friend from the European roads. They even shared a business manager. Kiplagat was happy for Ilyina, happy for herself with a second-place finish in her first marathon.

And then bewildered again.

The word drifted out. Ilyina had gone off course, into a gas station restroom, and then returned. She had not run 100 or so yards of Santa Monica Boulevard.

Kiplagat’s emotions were running a broken field. She was happy for herself, because $41,000--the $15,000 first-place purse, plus the cash equivalent of a car she didn’t know how to drive--would buy a lot more in Kenya than $7,500.

But now she was sad for Ilyina, who was disqualified half an hour after finishing the race.

“I’ve seen her since, in Holland about 2 1/2 months later,” says Kiplagat, who at 24 returns Sunday to try to become the first woman to successfully defend her Los Angeles championship since Nancy Ditz did so in 1987.

No man has won twice in a row. Few come back to try.

“She still hadn’t said anything about being disqualified,” Kiplagat says. “I went up to her and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t say anything. I’ve seen her several times. She’s my friend.”

The months since have been a series of peaks and valleys, typical of a runner who is still learning her sport. She came to it late, choosing running over other activities in school, but never really pushing her training until 1994.

Running seems second nature in Kenya, where broadcasts of the Boston Marathon are heard nationally because the race has long been dominated by Kenyans. The country’s running federation takes pride in--and a fair amount of money from--the success of the men who run. Until about six years ago, however, it ignored women runners, much as Kenyan society ignores women, save for wifely duties.

And then Tegla Loroupe won the New York Marathon.

And then she won it again, along the way charming Americans with a smile that lit up Central Park and a high-pitched, squeaky voice that spoke unintelligible English when she was excited.

And she often was excited.

Loroupe led Kenya in a run across the gender gap, and then Joyce Chepchumba won the London Marathon and Kiplagat won the Los Angeles Marathon and Kenya had some more runners to send abroad, to narrow its trade deficit.

Loroupe, Chepchumba and Kiplagat train together in Germany, with Loroupe, 25, the clear leader, the most accomplished and successful; Chepchumba, the oldest at 28, and Kiplagat, the kid, still feeling her way along.

Fortune has smiled on Loroupe, whose running has brought her cars and money, and a time of 2 hours 22 minutes 7 seconds in Rotterdam, the fastest in the world for a woman last year and the fourth-fastest marathon for a woman in history.

The world record is 2:21:06.

“She has been training a long time,” says Kiplagat. “She has things, and I would like to have things too. I desire to be like her, but not for the money, not for the things. I have the talent. I want to do the best I can do. If I do my best, I can be as good, and the more you run well, the more things are coming your way.”

There is potential for more things to come her way.

“She’s good. She’s strong,” says Loroupe, who adds, “I wasn’t surprised when she won last year. The times weren’t that good.”

She too, celebrated with Kiplagat, but commiserated with Ilyina. “I trained with her three years,” Loroupe says.

Kiplagat has learned that everything isn’t as easy as it was a year ago in Los Angeles. Her second marathon, Chicago in October, was a chance to make some money, in part because of her Los Angeles success.

She ran 2:39:13, finishing 10th, a humbling experience.

“Chicago is so windy,” she says. “And I think my body doesn’t like a lot of wind. I was in good shape, had trained well and the last day, during the race, it was so windy that wind got into my lungs and I got bronchitis.”

A trip back home to Kenya, to parents, three sisters and two brothers--”for Kenya, eight is not such a big family,” she says--and more training in Germany repaired her body and her ability to run, as indicated by a 15-kilometer win in February at Tampa, where she ran 49:23.

“L.A. is nice, with nice people,” she says. “L.A. is different. People are different. They look different, not from just one place. I like L.A. I’d like to run better there, to show that Chicago was just a bad race for me.”

And to show that she has learned to run marathons, not just finish them. She wants to learn what it’s like to break a tape at race’s end.

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Race at a Glance

* When: Sunday

* Time: 8:20 a.m. (wheelchair), 8:45 a,.m. (general)

* TV: Channel 13

* Start: Figueroa and 6th

* Finish: Flower and 5th