Want to know exactly how high the Kenyans are raising the marathon bar? Here's a taste:
We've recently taken up running, and with it, enough magazines and conditioning routines to graduate us up from novice to medium grade novice
We do:
1/2 mile @ a 8:34 per/mile pace
1 mile @ 7:30 per/mile pace
1/2 mile @ 8:00 per/mile pace
1/2 - 1 mile @ 6:45 per/mile pace (At which point we are basically sprinting and gasping and sweating and preying for death)
Compare this with the Olympic hopefuls marathon pace:
London marathon champ Martin Ley just completed his race at 2:05:15, which if our math is right, comes in at a blistering 4.8 minute mile. He's on the Kenyan national team along with the likes of Robert Cheruiyot, Boston marathon champ. And just in case, William Kipsang, who ran away with the Rotterdam Marathon title just a week ago, setting a new course record of 2:05:49, has been included as a reserve, as has the reigning World Marathon champion Luke Kibet.
Yet despite all the firepower, Kenya has never won an Olympic gold in marathon.
Can they break the jinx this year?
Not if Mexico has anything to say about it. We have it on good authority that the marathon is a Mexico national obsession
The fastest Latin American female marathoner ever, Madaí Pérez, will lead the Mexican 42.195km team in the 2008 Olympic Games
We'd go on, but there's so much more...
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