Marathon Will Stay the Course
Simon said: Follow me.
And 20,629 other runners did exactly that Sunday, chasing Simon Bor of Kenya through the city’s streets and to the finish line in the 14th Los Angeles Marathon.
Bor, 30, won in 2 hours 9 minutes 25 seconds, breaking by 54 seconds the 11-year-old event record and putting to rest talk among race organizers about flattening the demanding 26.2-mile course to make it more runner-friendly.
Bor, racing in the United States for the first time, broke away from weakening countryman Christopher Cheboiboch in the 20th mile and ran the last six miles alone in posting his first marathon victory in three attempts.
He won $35,000 and a car worth $24,300, plus a bonus of $25,000 for his sub-2:10 effort.
Cheboiboch, who suffered a malaria attack two weeks ago, wound up third behind another Kenyan, James Bungei, whose time of 2:10:43 was the fifth-fastest in L.A. Marathon history.
The first American to reach the finish line was Jose Luis Arriaga of Glendale, who was 17th in 2:25:35.
In winning, Bor showed that the hilly L.A. course could yield a quality time--much to the delight of race President William Burke, who so coveted a sub-2:10 marathon that he talked openly about changing the course (and altering its neighborhood appeal) to achieve it.
“Last night, I said a prayer for God to help me with this course decision,” Burke said, “and his answer was to send me Simon Bor. . . .
“Simon took an 800-pound gorilla off my back.”
Anne Roberts, who recruits the elite runners to the race, had said that such a time was not possible on the L.A. course, but she was only too happy to eat her words after watching Bor shave nearly a minute off the previous event record of 2:10:19, set by Martin Mondragon of Mexico in 1988.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Roberts, who also recruits elite athletes to the New York and Lisbon marathons. “My God, he ran so well. He was on a 2:07 pace for a better part of the race, which would translate to 2:06 on a flatter course. . . . Very impressive.”
Basil Honikman, chairman of the records committee for USA Track & Field, called it one of the all-time best marathon performances.
“The great temptation is to make courses easy so you get fast times,” Honikman said, “but a marathon is about toughness and this is an honest course that’s a credit to marathoning. . . .
“Considering the conditions and that he ran the last five or six miles alone, I think this was a 2:07:30 effort. The time is not everything; it’s what the conditions impose on you that makes it difficult.”
Bor was never daunted.
“I was made to understand that Los Angeles was a hard course,” he said, “so all the way when I was running, this thing was ringing in my mind, that this is a hard course. But actually . . . the course was not very hard.”
Not the way he tore into it.
Bor and Cheboiboch, dressed identically in lime green shorts, shoes and singlets, stayed with the designated rabbit, Leonid Shvetsov of Russia, for only four miles before deciding the pace was too slow and breaking away in a lead pack of about a dozen runners.
“I did what I was supposed to do,” said Shvetsov, who was instructed to run a 65:20 half-marathon. “I was surprised when they just took off, but I can’t stop them. They went out about a minute or at least 45 seconds ahead of me.”
Shvetsov said he caught about five of the leaders before dropping out at the halfway point. By then, Bor and Cheboiboch were far ahead, leading a four-man pack that included two other Kenyans, Simon Sawe and Joseph Kariuki.
At the halfway point, they were on a 2:07:24 pace.
Then, as the leaders began a six-mile climb into Hollywood in mile 14, Bor and Cheboiboch left their countrymen behind.
In the 19th mile, though, Cheboiboch grabbed at his right side, an indication that he was faltering, and instructed Bor to carry on without him.
“I told my friend, ‘You go and take the pace,’ ” Cheboiboch said. “. . . I never got tired, but I’m not completely over my malaria. If it wasn’t for my malaria, I think we would have run 2:07.”
Burke, the race co-founder who compared malaria to having a bad cold, sympathized with Cheboiboch.
“I have malaria also and let me tell you, when a malaria attack hits you, it’s like getting hit with a baseball bat,” Burke said. “So for him to stay stride for stride for Simon [for so long] after having a malaria attack [two weeks] ago is a heroic, heroic effort.”
Cheboiboch, 22, said he never considered withdrawing.
“I had been training hard,” he said. “You have to go out and try.”
When Cheboiboch slowed, Bor took off and left him behind.
Without his countryman to push him, Bor slowed down in the last few miles. Still, nobody was close as he broke the tape for the first time--after finishing second in two marathons last year.
His winning time was slower than his previous best of 2:08:46, which he ran last November in Amsterdam, but he called his victory “the best effort I have made in the marathon, considering the fact that so many people are saying the course is so hard.”
Hard for everybody else, maybe.
But not for Bor.
“I can say it was an easy race,” he said. “Almost all the race, there was nobody in front of me.”