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With Brigid Kosgei's coach, Erick Kimaiyo after participating at the 2019 Nairobi Marathon |
It is more than 12 years since I did my first race at the annual Nairobi Marathon, and I have always been almost consistently running different distances here from the 10km to the 42km.
In 2007, I did help pace Gladys Chemweno, the lady who had eventually won the 10km race that year. By then, almost all races were being done entirely on the Mombasa road loop. It was great for fast times, but perhaps quite complicated to manage all distances on the same road.
The 10km distance has been moved to the city center in recent times; which has been great to feature the city features in the race, but with too many loops and sharp corners perhaps it has not been so good for runners aiming for fast times.
The timing chips were at first put in place for the marathon distances, but is now has come down to the 10km distance, which should make things faster at the finish line. although it did not look so at the finish of the 10km race this weekend as I was asked to join a long queue to present my names at the finish line, of which I just said thank you and left. If there was not electronic timing at the finish, then I expect my results won't be that official anyway.
The only thing I could do was scale down from the 42km race I had earlier registered and run the 10km distance instead. I saw that I was off my target pace ( was aiming for 29:45) by over 30 seconds at 5km and just decided to stop and wait up for my wife to help her remain in the top ten positions, which might help build a good running profile for her. I helped pace her the last 5km and she finished 6th. I should be feeling well very soon now that I am finally able to take some medication for the remaining cold. It was a good race for my wife; it wasn't a good day for me.
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