Chicago, who's politicians "blowing a lot of wind" may have inspired the nickname Windy City, suffered from hot air of the literal variety on marathon Sunday. Temperatures soared to 31 C and organizers were forced to cut the race short after three-and-half hours. To make matters worse, aid stations ran out of water and Gatorade.
To add to the craziness, both the men's and women's elite races featured astoundingly close finishes.
Morocco's Jaouad Gharib was edged out by Kenyan Patrick Ivuti in a photo finish worthy of a 100m dash. Five one-hundredths of a second separated the two marathoners.
In the women's race, Romanian Adriana Pirtea appeared to have the race locked up with a few hundred metres to go. She high-fived spectators and appeared relaxed on the final straightaway. Little did she know that Ethiopia's Berhane Adere had gone into a maniacal sprint behind her and zoomed past the oblivious Pirtea just before the finish line on the far side of the road. Adere didn't even go through the winner's tape, which was being held on the other side of the line for the hapless Romanian.
A huge congratulations to Perry Romanowski, who managed to joggle this furnace of a race in 3:59.
2 comments:
Thanks Michal. The race was brutally hot and I went from a 1:49 first half to a 2:10 second. Can't remember the last time I did a half that slow.
Barry Goldmeier also joggled the race (although he was doing 5 balls). Unfortunately for him they stopped the race and he wasn't allowed to do the entire thing. He also didn't get Gatorade at the water stations because they had run out. He actually went into a few stores along the way and bought Gatorade.
It was quite a race.
Perry, I saw you run by me at 25 miles. I reflexively yelled, "oh my God, he's juggling". It's the last thing I expected to see on a day like that.
Well done.
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