KIMbia Athletics

While Bolder Boulder race organizers could celebrate a record number of finishers in the annual 10k Memorial Day race, Brent Vaughn and James Carney stood out from the crowd in the elite race, placing 4th and 7th, respectively. Both athletes represented Team Colorado in the three-person team race, and with Vaughn finishing in 29:56 behind a trio of world-class Ethiopian athletes, Team Colorado took 2nd in team competition, beating trios from Kenya, Australia, and even the United States at-large. In the fourteen previous years of International Challenge competition at Bolder Boulder, no representative of Team Colorado had placed higher than 11th. As each crossed the finish line before a hometown crowd, the Boulder-area-based Vaughn and Carney became the first and second Team Colorado competitors ever to notch Top 10 finishes in a race that has routinely hosted Olympic medalists, World Record holders, and some of the best road runners in the world. Another Boulder-based athlete, Jason Hartmann, represented KIMbia and Team USA in 12th place, clocking a 30:35. In the women’s race, Jelliah Tenega placed 4th in 33:57, scoring for the runner-up team from Kenya.

[ Full Results ]

KIMbia athletes did the memory of Kim McDonald proud on Saturday night, as Chris Solinsky and Simon Bairu smashed the American and Canadian national records, respectively, in the 10,000m race that bears McDonald’s name.

Last year, Tim Nelson won this race in a strong 27:39. In 2010, seven KIMbia athletes toed the starting line for the Kim McDonald 10,000m at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational, and this time, the results were outright astounding.  Chris Solinsky ran steadily in the lead pack for the duration of the race, before stepping around race leader Galen Rupp and making an explosive move with 900 meters to go. Solinsky covered the final two laps in under 2:00 to shock running fans the world over and stop the clock at 26:59.60 — a new American record by an eye-popping fourteen seconds.  Moments later, teammate Simon Bairu would complete his own impressive run, logging a 27:23.63 to set a new Canadian national record. Bairu’s time peeled 12.38 seconds off of the previous record.

Oh, and Tim Nelson? He ran 27:31.56 — an terrific eight-second PB. But this year, on an historic night, it would “only” place him seventh. Clearly, the legacy of Kim McDonald lives on in the performances of the athletes running under the “KIMbia” banner and in the ever-improving performances of athletes around the world. Following Nelson in were Brent Vaughn, making his professional debut at this distance (13th, 28:05), Boaz Cheboiywo (14th, 28:06), and Jason Hartmann (19th, 28:25). Full results can be found here, and a video of the race is at the bottom of the page.

We will have much more on Solinsky and Bairu’s record-breaking races as we move into the week.

Once again, Tim Nelson stepped away from the track and collected a runner-up finish at a USATF Championship, placing 2nd at the Gate River Run 15k in 43:52.  Nelson laid off the hot early pace set by eventual race winner Mo Trafeh, who hit one-mile in 4:22, allowing Nelson to cross the line four seconds before recent USATF Half Marathon champion Antonio Vega, who placed third. Also running a credible race, Boston-native Sean Quigley came 5th in 44:05, while Jason Hartmann finished 13th.

In the women’s race, Rebecca Donaghue took 4th place, ahead of Olympians Blake Russell and Lindsay Anderson. Donaghue completed the 15k in 51:13.

Full results can be found here.

Jason Hartmann delivered what could well be the breakout marathon performance of his career, winning the Twin Cities Marathon in a massive PB of 2:12:09 on Sunday.  Hartmann took the victory with a margin of almost one minute, as a trio of Kenyans, led by Augustus Mbusya in 2:13:03, took places two, three, and four. Although Hartmann’s potential in the marathon had been suggested by his 10th Place showing in the 2007 Olympic Marathon Trials — a 2:15:27 clocking on a hilly course — Sunday’s race marks his first major road win, and makes him the 4th-fastest American of 2009, behind only Olympians Keflezighi, Hall, and Ritzenhein.  In the past three years, only those men, and Olympian Brian Sell have run faster.

Full results can be found here.  Check back at the end of this week for a Q&A with Jason!

Battling a very competitive field in Atlanta on Saturday, Lineth Chepkurui, was able to score a huge win, a fast time, and a hefty paycheck at the Atlanta Journal Constitution Peachtree Road Race.  The 21 year old Chepkurui kept a phenomenal 2009 going by edging out Ethiopia’s Meseret Mengsitu by just one second while also running a PB time of 31:31. She also collected $32,500 in race earnings after sharing a $35,000 bonus prize purse from the Professional Road Racing Organization with the men’s winner, Sammy Kitwara. Lineth became eligible for the purse by winning other PRRO road races earlier in the year. Lineth’s KIMbia mate, Elva Dryer, placed 18th overall and was 6th American in the women’s race.

With the win, Lineth has added one more reason for her to be considered the most feared young Kenyan on the road. Just this year she has won Peachtree, Cherry Blossom, Crescent City, and Bloomsday, a veritable “who’s who” of non-marathon American road races.

In the men’s race, Boaz Cheboiywo was an impressive 5th* 4th place in 28:05. James Carney ran 28:19 finishing 10th* 9th overall and was 3rd American in the Peachtree race, which served as the USATF 10k National Championship. Abdi Abdirahman won the US Championship in 28:11 and Anthony Famiglietti was 2nd in 28:15.

*Updated results after 4th place finisher, Tadese Tola was DQ’d for unsportsmanlike conduct after elbowing Boaz in the final 30 meters of the race.
Full Results for Peachtree here.

As many American track fans caught their breath on a weekend falling between college conference and regional championship weekends, and professional track meets on each coast, KIMbia athletes still found themselves plenty busy in competition at several excellent, if less widely-covered, events.

With many KIMbia athletes making their States-side homes in Boulder, it was fitting to have so many of them run before the hometown crowd.  Each year, following an all-comers citizens’ race, the pros take to Boulder’s streets in a race scored by national affiliation, and, this year Millicent Gathoni — the defending champion — and Jane Gayunki led the Kenyan team, finishing 5th and 8th, respectively. In the men’s competition, KIMbia was represented on Team Kenya, Team USA, Team Commonwealth, and Team Colorado, with John Yuda our first finisher, notching a 3rd-place finish for Team Commonwealth.  Boulder-resident James Carney followed Yuda and was the first American finisher in 4th place. Other Top 10 finishes came from Gilbert Okari (6th) and Charles Munyeki (7th), both competing for Kenya.  Locally-based Jason Hartmann took 12th as a member of Team Colorado, and Fasil Bizuneh would represent Team USA in 15th. Read the full article

Lineth successfully defended her Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run title Sunday in Washington, D.C. She ran 53:32, a full 23 seconds up on 2nd-placer Belaynesh Gebre and nearly a minute faster than her winning time from last year.

The past week has been pretty good to Lineth: on March 28th, she ran what is arguably the best race so far of her young career to finish fourth at the world cross country championships in Amman, Jordan before heading back to Kenya and then to Washington. (You can check out results from Amman here; Lineth was only a few seconds out of the bronze medal position but helped Kenya to a dominating win over Ethiopia in the women’s senior race.)  After a weather-related flight delay in Nairobi, Lineth arrived late to the United States and hardly slept Saturday night. It didn’t seem to matter. Women’s results are here.

Jason Hartman’s 48:03 was good for 14th place and first American honors. He also wins a trip to the Himeji Castle 10 Mile Race in Japan. The Washington Post has a good recap of the race, and here are men’s results.

Fasil and Jason will be on hand for a question-and-answer session following the July 5 screening of the Running Film Festival, which will be held in Eugene, Oregon during the Olympic track trials. Jason and Fasil are among the subjects of Born To Run: A Tale of Endurance, which will be excerpted at the festival.

If you’re lucky enough to be in Eugene during the trials, come by and say hi. If you buy your tickets before June 15, you can win VIP passes and a massive flat-screen HDTV.

More info at the festival’s site. A trailer of trailers on the Running Times site.

Richard Kiplagat continued his strong spring season with a solid third-place run at this morning’s Healthy Kidney 10K in Central Park. Richard ran 29:08 over the hilly course to finish behind half marathon ace Patrick Makau (28:19) and 2006 New York City Marathon winner Marilson Gomes dos Santos (28:31). In humid weather, times were slower than at last year’s race, when Richard was 5th in 28:51. Here’s a post-race video of Richard.

Jason Hartmann was the top American, finishing 10th in 29:38. Results are here.

Check back tomorrow for reports from the Bay to Breakers 12K, where Lineth Chepkurui will try to add to her spring win streak.

Then Kimbia would have taken the team title. (Well, if scoring was 4 deep.)

This morning in Central Park, Jason Hartmann, James Carney, Fasil Bizuneh and Tim Nelson took 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th, respectively, at the U.S. 8K championships. Jason ran 22:48 to finish 6 seconds behind winner Jorge Torres and Andrew Carlson. James and Fasil were also in the lead pack that went through 5K in 14:10. James finished in 22:53, Fasil in 23:03.

Tim was the top finisher from the chase pack, closing well after splitting 14:22 at 5K to finish in 23:05.

Results | Post-race video of Fasil