Surprise, surprise!

Not many would have put their money on a non-African winning a marathon major, especially not in New York, with all the focus on a possible repeat of the thrilling finish between last year's winner (Tergat) and runner-up (Ramaala). However, it was the unheralded Brazilian, Marilson Gomez dos Santos, who made a decisive move in the latter stages and held off a late challenge by Kiogora ("Baba") and Tergat, the latter finishing a few steps behind Kiogora to take third place. Kiogora's podium place was some consolation for the failure of several KIMbia athletes in Chicago two weeks ago, and they are no doubt celebrating tonight. Last year's runner up, Ramaala, faded bady to finish ninth.

Lance Armstrong, who had garnered a disproportionate amount of media coverage leading up to the event, was paced to a sub-3 effort (2:59:36) by an all-star crew composed of Salazar, Samuelson, and none other than the great Hicham El Guerrouj, who reportedly handed him water and gels along the way (El G must've gone crazy running 7 minute miles, though I suppose Nike made it well worth his while.)

Boston update: I'm two weeks into the program, still in the base phase; I ran 52 miles this week, most of it at an easy 7:30 min/mile pace. This is the highest mileage I've hit since September 2005 (56 miles at the peak of my training for Chicago). This time, I intend to max out at 75 miles/week with some workouts and see where that gets me. Hopefully into the 2:40s.

Update: Steve Cram, former mile world record holder (3:46), was also part of today's race and finished in a somewhat sedate 3:27:26. Read his column here.

Bittersweet victory

Robert Cheruiyot ran a perfect race in inclement weather to win the 2006 Chicago Marathon earlier today in a time of 2:07:35, but was denied his chance to fully celebrate it when he slipped at the finish line, slamming his head on the road and suffering a severe head injury in the process - reports point to a brain haemorrhage, but he is supposedly in a stable condition. Luckily for him, his momentum carried him across the finish line - imagine the agony of a DNF if he'd slipped a couple of feet before the line.

Cheruiyot, also winner of the Boston Marathon earlier this year, slipped on the textureless sponsor logo just before the finishing mat, which had been made more slick by the rain. Click on the image to see the video of his fall. CNN has another good angle where you can even see the officials removing the offending sponsor logo before more runners could succumb to the same fate. The incident generated quite a buzz on the Letsrun message boards, which you can read about here, here and here.