As I mentioned in my post the other day I went to watch the Discovery Kenya Half Marathon Championships in Eldoret yesterday and what a race it was! Over 500 starters with probably 90% of them capable of running under 65 minutes. The start was insane, after about 400m there was a sharp left hand turn and how no-one fell over I will never know. I heard rumours that the first kilometre was done in 2.30 and I can believe it. They had to do seven laps of a route around Eldoret town centre, not an easy course either as it was basically on a hill with half the lap going down the hill, the other half up the hill. A group of three broke away from the main pack on the second lap including one of the guys from my camp but unfortunately he dropped out after about 40 minutes with a stitch. The eventual winner was a guy that some of you may remember from a fair few years back named Abraham Chebii (sorry for the spelling), he had a big lead until the last lap where he started to struggle a bit but still ended up a comfortable winner in 62.59. Considering the race was held at 1.5miles above sea level, was on a hilly course, it was quite windy, very hot and they didn't have any water that is a pretty amazing time!! Another one of our guys finished in a very credible 8th position but unfortunately due to some error he was disqualified as the officials believed he had another lap to go and was cheating! How they could keep track of who was finishing and who had more laps to do is beyond me. Below is a short video of the finish.
I bumped into a few people from the UK at the half marathon, Jonathan Blackledge who I have raced many a time back home and Becky Lynne the 800m runner, both who are out here training. It sure is a small world!
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