Kenyans claim 9 of top 10 at Grandma’s
Philemon Kemboi prepares to pass Chris Kipyego and David Rutoh to win Grandma's.
The question “Which Kenyan will win this year?” was far more than just cynical rhetoric in 2010, at the 34th running of Grandma’s Marathon, which had its familiar upbeat theme tinged with sadness in the aftermath. Kenya’s involvement was only joyful, with Philemon Kemboi leading a contingent that finished 1-5 and had nine of the top 10.
Kemboi’s surprising late bid left Chris Kipyego and David Rutoh behind over the final mile, and his third-to-first burst broke the Canal Park tape at 2 hours, 15 minutes, 44 seconds. It was Kemboi’s first marathon victory ever, although it was Kenya’s 10th in the last 14 Grandma’s Marathons.
The race will, unfortunately, be remembered for having sustained the first fatality in the Marathon’s 34-year history. Norman Ruth, 64, from Duluth’s suburb of Hermantown, finished the 20th Annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, which started earlier in the day, but after finishing he required medical attention, and died of an apparent heart attack. He was attended at the medical tent near the finish line and then hospitalized, but didn’t recover.
While Duluth’s premier sports event is annually well-promoted and attains numerous pages of publicity, organizers were obviously unprepared to deal with the tragedy. Later on race day, only the fact that someone had died in the half-marathon was disclosed.
Meanwhile, out on the course along Lake Superior’s North Shore, the full marathon was being taken over by the three top runners, all making their first visits to Duluth. They led the swift crop of runners who make their annual pilgrimage to Duluth and return home by bolstering their East African nation’s economy.
“It was the biggest race I’ve ever won,” said Kemboi, who earned $10,900. “I will go home…and I will go to the bank. I feel good about being able to help my family’s life to improve.”
Kenya’s elite runners had won nine of 13 before Minnesota native Christopher Raabe won last year. Raabe ran among the leaders this year, too, and finished sixth as the only interruption to Kenya’s top nine places.
Things were much simpler to follow in the women’s segment, where Buzunesh Deba from Ethiopia, simply sped away from the start, and recorded a personal best 2:31:36 time to beat runner-up and fellow-Ethiopian Yeshimebet Bifa by almost four full minutes.
Deba moved from Ethiopia to New York four years ago, and said watching the New York Marathon in 2008 caused her to decide to become a distance runner. After competing in shorter 5K and 10K races, she started in marathons only last fall.
Buzunesh Deba, women's winner.
“The first marathon I entered I won,” she said. Her winning time in the California International Marathon was 2:32:17, and after running seventh in the New York Marathon, she sped into 2010 by winning the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer in Florida with a time of 2:33:08. So Saturday’s run was her best by almost a minute.
“My plan was to start fast and try to get ahead,” she said, laughing herself at such obvious strategy, except that she made work. She was alone by the 5-mile mark, and nobody else ever got within view of her.
Mary Akor, who had won the last three Grandma’s, finished fourth, behind the top two Ethiopians, and Everlyne Lagat. Akor, 33, has suffered with recent illness that is scheduled for surgery in the near future, and she had to yield to the youthful Deba, who is 22, and Bifa, 21.
The 20th annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon was also owned by African runners. Stephen Muange of Kenya won a close men’s segment in 1:04:24, three seconds ahead of Bado Worku, an Ethiopian who was closely followed by countrymen Derese Deniboba Rashaw and Worku Beyl. The women’s category was won by Caroline Rotich, in 1:12:40, nearly two minutes ahead of Alemtsehay Misganaw in a 1-2 Ethiopian finish.
The festive attitude of marathon day was as high-spirited as usual, because nobody had been informed that, hours earlier, Ruth had become the first fatality in the Marathon’s 34-year history. Dr. Ben Nelson, serving his first race as medical director, made the early evening announcement of the fatality, but said he met with race officials and they decided to release no other information.
The fatality was a shocking irony on a race day with temperatures in the mid-60s, about 20 degrees cooler than the year before, which greatly reduced the number of runners affected by the heat and high humidity. Dr. Nelson said in the full and half marathons, 230 runners required some medical attention, but only four from the finish-line tent and three others from out on the course were sent to hospitals for treatment — a significant reduction from recent years.
Withholding news of the tragedy, intentionally or not, left the day to the usual celebration, and the drama for the full marathon built throughout. Race-watchers along the North Shore saw the Kenyans dominate from start to finish, with the three front-running Kenyans pulling away around the 23-mile mark. By the time they glided off London Road and onto Superior Street, the three lead runners were alone. But even then, there was a surprise finish.
Kemboi, 36, whose best previous marathon time of 2:10:58 was good for only a fifth-place finish in France last year, was loping along right behind the tandem of Kipyego, 36, and Rutch, 24, who said they were anticipating which of the two would make the pivotal move for the lead. Kemboi burst past them both as they turned off Superior Street, and his more experienced rivals couldn’t match his finishing speed.
Kemboi is taller than most other Kenyan runners, at 5-foot-8 and 120 pounds, and when he stretched his legs out running down Fifth Avenue West, his winning time of 2:15:44 beat Kipyego by 16 seconds, with Rutoh three more seconds back in third. Kenyans Kipyegon Kirui and Kennedy Kemei were fourth and fifth. Sixth was Raabe, the Minnesota native who was a surprise winner last year. Raabe, who now lives in Washington, D.C., was followed by four more Kenyans, as the prolific elite visitors were the class of the 5,620 entries who finished the full marathon.
Philemon Kemboi
Despite the cooler conditions, the full marathon didn’t threaten any records. Kemboi’s winning time was far off the record established by Minnesotan Dick Beardsley in 1982, at 2:09:37 in the fifth year of the event. In fact, Kemboi’s 2:15:44 was a half-minute off last year’s winning pace, when Raabe won at 2:15:13. But the victory was a breakthrough for Kemboi.
A late starter in competitive running, Kemboi had grown up on a family farm near Kapsabet, about seven hours drive from Nairobi. His family never had a car, he said, and when he realized he could help his family by earning money in distance running, he started seriously training in 2004. Calf injuries hindered him for a couple of years, so he had only entered three previous marathons.
Inexperienced or not, he said, “I thought I could win it.” His top rivals were less convinced. Kemboi, speaking only his native Swahili via an interpreter, said he went along with Kipyego and Rutoh, his two countrymen, when they moved away from the pack. “It wasn’t a bad pace,” Kemboi said. “But when they decided to push forward, I was in agreement that we needed to pick up the pace.”
He said he thought he surprised them when he went for the lead as the three turned off Superior Street, down the Fifth Avenue West hill toward the harbor. Kipyego had run against Rutoh before, but didn’t know Kemboi. After the three leaders got away from the field, Kipyego was running alongside Rutoh and said, “I told this guy, ‘Let’s push, let’s push.’ I told him it was time to break away. I was expecting him, if anyone, to be the one to go for the lead.
“I didn’t know who this other guy was. When he went by us, I tried hard to close the gap, but he was very strong for me. I started thinking, ‘Is HE going to win the race?’ ”
He was, indeed.
Kipyego said Grandma’s is unlike other major marathons, which he suspects limit the number of Kenya runners invited. There were 27 at Grandma’s.
“I saw the list, with so many Kenyans, and I thought, ‘This will be fun,’ ” said Kipyego, He said his sister, Sally, became a top NCAA runner at Texas Tech after growing up running to keep up with her big brother. In Kenya, running ability is naturally attained by a different lifestyle from childhood. In the U.S., kids might be driven six blocks to a playground, a fact Kipyego found amusing.
“We had no cars, no buses, and there were no roads,” said Kipyego, who is from the city of Eldoret. “School was five kilometers away, and there was no school bus. We’d run to school in the morning, run home for lunch, then run back to school, and then run home, every day.”
That is a common thread among the Kenyan runners. Kemboi said he, too, ran from the family farm to school, but it was only one kilometer. Hardly proper training for an elite marathon runner. But even if 36 makes him a late-bloomer, his victory can be a springboard to more marathon invitations.
Perennial star Mullen leads perennial power Hawks
Pressure? What pressure? If there is anything resembling pressure on Hermantown’s return to Caswell Park in North Mankato this week to defend its Class AA Minnesota state high school softball championship, it was not noticeable — and with good reason.
The Section 7AA tournament provided as much pressure as Hermantown(23-4) was prepared to face Pipestone Area (20-1) in the opening state tournament game. It turned out that Hermantown beat Pipestone, and won a semifinal game as well, but lost in the championship game to fall one short of repeating as state champs.
But getting there was enough of a chore to remain in the Hermantown players’ memory banks forever. After the Hawks won their third straight Section 7AA title, coach Tom Bang acknowledged that he had an unfair advantage after the Hawks survived four consecutive elimination games to win the Section 7AA championship at Braun Park in Cloquet.
“Any time you have No. 4 going on the mound for you, you know you’ve got a real good chance,” said Bang.
No. 4 is Megan Mullen, whose pitching and hitting decided last Thursday’s pair of must-win victories over Duluth Central, who gave the most credit back to Bang. Mullen and fellow-senior Julia Gilbert have been standouts for four straight years, while Ellen Folman, another senior, has been a regular for three seasons.
That was no guarantee of anything, of course. In the sectional, the Hawks lost a 3-2 opening game to an aroused Duluth Central team, which was playing its final season as a separate entity before a controversial merging with Denfeld takes hold and the “red and white” falls victim to the “Red Plan.”
After upsetting Hermantown to open play on Tuesday of last week, Central also beat Denfeld to stand undefeated, while Hermantown had to beat Greenway of Coleraine right after the loss to Central, then had to also beat Denfeld in another battle the same day, where the loser was finished for the season.
That sent Hermantown back to the Thursday finals against Central, and the determined Hawks — knowing they had to beat Central twice to capture the title — blew out the Trojans 8-0 to set up an immediate rematch. With both teams having one loss, one more loss would mean the end of the season for Hermantown, and the end of the season and the program for Central.
Mullen and Central freshman Sarah Hendrickson duelled through three scoreless innings, then Mullen drove in the first two runs in the fourth, and another in the fifth, and pitched the Hawks to a 3-1 victory.
“Over the years, we’ve had a lot of outstanding players, including Lindsay Erickson, who went on to play for the Gophers,” said Bang, who is completing his 31st season as the architect of the dominant program. “But I’d have to say Megan Mullen is the most talented pitcher I’ve had, and probably the best player. We had four seniors last year, and 14 returned from the tournament roseter for this year.”
And it was Bang, Mullen said, whose strategic maneuvers helped turn Tuesday’s 3-2 loss into Thursday’s 8-0, 3-1 sweep, with the two setbacks ending Central’s outstanding season at 17-7. Central’s players played hard through both games, and showed great spirit, with their emotions finally running over during their final post-game huddle. The intensity of the two games meant both teams spent everything on the field, and in the end, Mullen’s hitting was a pivotal difference.
“My hitting?” said Mullen. “Tuesday didn’t go so good, but today worked out better. We set goals at the start of the season, and one of my goals was to bat over .400. I don’t know for sure what my average is now, but it’s somewhere around .420. But the biggest difference between us losing 3-2 to Central, and beating them twice is Mr. Bang. When they beat us, Central definitely had their bats going real well, but in these two games, Mr. Bang called the pitches. He had watched all their hitters, and that made a big difference. Central’s hitters are really good, and they recognize change-ups and adjust to hit them. So today we went with more hard stuff — I would say 98 percent of my pitches.”
Bang said his signal calling required no special genius, and he continued to go with her fast ball and other power pitches. “Her rise ball is hard, her curve is hard, and she has a little screwball that goes outside-in to right-handed hitters,” said Bang. “I like to get ahead in the count, so I like her fastball down and in or down and out. During the season, we beat Central 1-0 on a passed ball that only got about 6 feet away from their catcher, but Julia Gilbert beat the play home. Megan struck out 18 of 21 outs in that one.”
Mullen’s windmill pitching — which will be on display next season as a freshman at UMD — deserved high praise. She allowed four hits, walked one and struck out nine in the 8-0 game, when Bang took her ouot after five innings. With both teams mobilized for an all-out effort in the decisive second game, Mullen went all seven innings, allowed five hits, no walks, and struck out nine again. She sailed through six innings, giving up three hits, walking none and striking out nine, and just when it appeared she would hurl back-to-back shutout gems, Molly Jadzewski led off the seventh by blasting a home run over the right-centerfield fence, and Kylie Murray added a single before Mullen got out of further trouble.
But Mullen’s hitting was just as pivotal. Hermantown established itself with a 5-run top of the first inning. Mullen’s double drove in the first run, and Ellen Folman singled home two more. It got better in the second game, after Central regrouped to make its final bid, and Hendrickson battled Mullen evenly until the last of the fourth.
It was 0-0 when Julia Gilbert beat out a bunt single leading off the fourth and stole second. Rudi Summers bunted her to third and beat it out for another hit, then she also stole second, putting runners at second and third with none out. Mullen came up next and drilled a single to right, driving in both Gilbert and Summers for a 2-0 lead. That might have been the biggest hit of the season for Hermantown, but in case more was needed, Mullen singled home another run in the fifth to make it 3-0.
Going 2-3 and driving in all three runs was enough to deserve the spotlight, if it wasn’t for Mullen’s strong pitching. At the state tournament, of course, everybody has a story of similar heroics, and even though Mullen threw yet another no-hitter in the semifinals, the Hawks fell just short.
CENTRAL’S FINAL BID
On the other side of the Section 7AA final, Central coach Nat Brown knew what his Trojans were up against in the quest to finish off Hermantown.
“We knew going in that even though we were undefeated, we were going to have a tough time,” said Brown. “In our two earlier games against Hermantown [the 1-0 loss and Tuesday’s 3-2 victory], Julia Gilbert had scored all three runs against us, so how important was it to keep her off the bases? But we came out tight, she’s the first hitter up, we boot it, and they go on to score five.
“That made it tough. You don’t want to raise a white flag, but you almost wish you could just call the game and get ready for the second game.”
Brown pulled Sarah Hendrickson, who emerged as a standout pitcher despite being only a ninth-grader, after three innings, to help her get replenished for the rematch. She responded with a strong 5-hitter in the second game, striking out five.
“Sarah felt so bad between games,” said Brown. “She came up to me and said, ‘Sorry I let you down.’ I told her, ‘You’ve never let me down for a second.’ ”
Having finished his 10th year coaching, Brown now must re-apply to see if he will be allowed to continue coaching the newly combined Central-Denfeld team next year.
BANG’S EVENTFUL YEAR
Hermantown coach Tom Bang has had what you might call an eventful year since last year since the school year ended. On June 9, the Hawks won the state title — the school’s third. On June 10, he went in for heart surgery. He retired as a teacher, but he said he would stay on as softball coach. Now they’ve earned their way back to the state tournament for the chance to defend their state title, which begins one day after the anniversary of last year’s championship.
“I had a problem with my bicuspid heart valve, and developed an anorism in my aorta,” Bang said. “They replaced it with a metal valve on June 10. I knew the previous November that I would have to have the surgery, and one doctor said I should hve it within six months, so I knew I could make it until the season was over.”
By a day. With his heart situation in mind, was that why his players didn’t try to give him a Gatorade dowsing after winning the 7AA title? “No,” said Bang. “They got me last year, and I faked a heart attack.”
Bang, a lifetime resident of Hermantown, played baseball and football at the school before graduating in 1969.
“I started teaching in 1978, so I don’t know if that means I’ve coached 31 or 32 years,” said Bang.
Jill, his wife, knows full well that this is his 31st year coaching. It turns out that June 9 not only was the day the Hawks won last year’s state title, it was the 31st anniversary of Tom and Jill’s wedding. Three children, three state titles, and two state runner-up finishes later, Jill still remembers. “He didn’t really tell me about the coaching,” said Jill. “But if they’d won one more game that year, he would have missed our wedding rehearsal.”
This is the 17th time Bang has taken Hermantown to the state tournament in his 31 seasons. It also is the Hawks’ ninth straight Class AA tournament, although Hermantown took a break when it was boosted up to Class AAA for two years. That means Hermantown went to state in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, then moved up and failed to make the state AAA tournament in 2006 and 2007, and since returning to Class AA, the Hawks have won three straight sectionals.
Obviously, he hasn’t lost his passion for coaching, or his skill at maneuvering his carefully cultivated talent for success. And he’s learned to be a little flexible, too. They ran into daylong rain on Tuesday, but they held a pre-state tournament practice Monday. How did it go?
“It wasn’t bad, considering,” said Bang. “School’s out now, and the seniors had their all-night graduation party, so not everybody was as sharp as they could be.”
They were razor sharp for the state tournament, and fell just shy of their ultimate goal after a brilliant effort.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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