Geoffrey Mutai Wins New York Marathon With Course Record

Geoffrey Mutai breaking the tape in the record time of 2:05:06. More Photos »
By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: November 6, 2011

The footsteps keep getting faster, pounding like a drumbeat on the city streets. From Boston to London to Chicago this year, Kenya’s marathon men have smashed course records in frenzied fashion, and they drilled the world record in Berlin.

Would New York, the final and hilliest of all the major marathons, allow a similarly blistering pace?

Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya, the self-coached 30-year-old who shocked the running world to start the season in Boston, made the question rhetorical on Sunday. On a glistening, windless day that seemed made for marathoning, Mutai flew over five New York bridges, surging in the final six miles to shatter a decade-old course record by more than two and a half minutes.

Mutai captured the 2011 New York City Marathon in 2 hours 5 minutes 6 seconds — and the stampede did not stop when he broke the tape. His countryman Emmanuel Mutai, 27 and no relation, finished second in 2:06:28. Tsegaye Kebede, 24, of Ethiopia finished third in 2:07:14.

The official margin of victory, 1:22.31, was the largest in the race since 1992.

The three men each earned a $70,000 bonus for breaking the course record (2:07:43, set by Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia in 2001). Emmanuel Mutai collected an additional $500,000 for winning the World Marathon Majors with his strong performances over the last two years. Geoffrey Mutai won a total of $200,000 for his victory and the record run on a day in which an event-record 47,438 competitors started.

“Although I won, the race was not easy,” Geoffrey Mutai said. “I was not expected to win at that time.”

But he was favored, given his history. About seven months ago, he obliterated the hilly Boston Marathon course record in a world-best time of 2:03:02. It was an eye-popping mark in a roaring tailwind that was, however, ultimately not sanctioned as a record because of the course’s elevation loss and because Boston’s start and finish were separated by more than 50 percent of the race distance.

Running a marathon faster than anyone in history (Patrick Makau of Kenya set the world record, 2:03:38, with the aid of pacesetters in Berlin in September) yet being told that his race was not worthy of a record deflated and elated Mutai. Those dual emotions, he said, motivated him through his training runs in the remote trails of the Rift Valley in western Kenya.

By winning in Boston and in New York — on hilly courses where pacesetters are not permitted — Mutai allowed that he might have erased any doubts about his talents.

“I am happy now because even although it was not recognized, I’m happy to be at that level,” he said.

Meb Keflezighi of the United States, the Olympic silver medalist in 2004 and the winner in New York in 2009, marveled at Mutai’s race.

“To run that fast is pretty incredible,” he said.

On Sunday, Keflezighi stayed with the leaders through 19 miles, then started to feel his stomach churning. He stopped in Mile 22 to vomit but still finished in 2:09:13, his fastest marathon. In this swift field, it was good for sixth place.

Keflezighi said he was thrilled to finish the race healthy, because he plans to compete in the United States Olympic marathon trials Jan. 14 in Houston, hoping to make his third Olympic team.

New York was an unofficial Olympic trials for the Kenyans. Officials from the country’s federation traveled to New York to make a decision, ostensibly on a final runner, as Makau, as the world-record holder, and Abel Kirui, the world champion, seemed to be guaranteed to make the team.

But are Geoffrey Mutai’s accomplishments in the enigmatic world of Kenyan athletics enough to put him on the Olympic team?

“If they select me, I’ll be there,” he said after the race.

With patience and grace, Mutai ran in front of a tightly packed group for the first 16 miles. The pack thinned from 11 to 10, and by the time the men hit First Avenue, there were seven, including last year’s winner, Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia.

But crossing the Willis Avenue Bridge at Mile 20, Mutai broke away on Alexander Avenue in the Bronx. He charged off the Madison Avenue Bridge into Harlem, and from there, he attacked the incline of Fifth Avenue and entered Central Park with a 55-second lead.

“We all worked together — and then it was time to push it,” he said. “For me, I was trying to run my own race.”

For 10 years, Mutai has been his own coach. In 2004, he made a painful decision when he was not winning enough to afford treatment for a leg injury. He went to work cutting trees for Kenya Power, the nation’s utility company.

In the last two years, his own power has been sizzling. He said he wondered if he could break the world record on a flatter course.

“I have that in my mind, if it was another course, maybe I can do it,” he said.

As for the role of pacesetters in aiding world records, he said bluntly, “I don’t think if those people can come here and run here, if they can break the world record here.”

Mary Wittenberg, the chief executive of the New York Road Runners, which oversees the race, said she believed someone would one day run 2:04 in New York.

“I think to take two-plus minutes off that record says a lot more about Geoffrey Mutai than it says about our course,” she said.

A world record has not been set in New York in three decades: the American Alberto Salazar ran the race in 2:08:13 in 1981. But that era is long gone. Now there is a brave, blistering crop of runners who are threatening to run under two hours.

“The record is still going down and down,” Emmanuel Mutai said. “I see maybe it would not take too much more time, maybe after three years or one year, the record will be broken again. Even if it is not me, the other generation is coming.”

But right now, Emmanuel and Geoffrey, especially, are not looking back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/sports/geoffrey-mutai-wins-new-york-marathon-with-course-record.html?pagewanted=2