{"id":305,"date":"2014-03-30T19:29:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-30T19:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/?p=305"},"modified":"2014-03-31T15:12:47","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T15:12:47","slug":"komon-takes-berlin-in-fast-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/news\/komon-takes-berlin-in-fast-time","title":{"rendered":"Komon takes Berlin in Fast Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leonard<\/a><\/p>\n

Running his debut at the distance Leonard Komon won the 34th Vattenfall BERLIN HALF MARATHON with a world-class time of 59:14, just edging out fellow-Kenyan Abraham Cheroben in a sprint finish. <\/p>\n

While 26 year-old Komon clearly missed the world record (58:23) he wanted to break, the Kenyan still had plenty to celebrate: His time is an unofficial world debut record. He improved the mark of Moses Mosop by six seconds. Fellow-Kenyan Mosop clocked 59:20 in Milan in 2010. Ethiopia\u2019s Tadelech Bekele won the women\u2019s race in 70:05.<\/p>\n

Running with a tailwind during the first 10 k a very fast race developed. After passing the 5 k mark in 13:39 a group of four runners \u2013 Kenya\u2019s pacemaker Vincent Rono led his fellow countrymen Komon, Cheroben and Daniel Chebii \u2013 reached the 10 k point in 27:40. With this split time the group was on time for a world record. But Rono\u2019s pacemaking duties soon ended and when the group of three turned into Kurfuerstendamm after 11 k they ran into a head wind for most of the remaining distance. While Chebii could no longer hold on, Cheroben showed a great performance. The Kenyan, who is a training partner of Komon and entered the race with a personal best of 60:38, took the lead. \u201cI have to thank him for this, because it really helped me,\u201d said Komon after the race.<\/p>\n

However the pace dropped and the world record became unrealistic once the two leaders passed the 15 k point in 41:44. In the final few kilometres it was now about winning not about chasing records. In a sprint finish Komon, who is the world record holder at 10 and 15 k, just beat Cheroben. Both were given the same time of 59:14 which is the second fastest this year. The course record remains at 58:56, set by Patrick Makau (Kenya) in 2007.<\/p>\n

“I am happy with my performance in my debut race. Of course I ran longer distances in training, but there is always a difference between training and competition. I thought I would be able to run sub 59 minutes. It was a challenge, but at the end there was something missing. But I know what to do and will try to run such a time in my next half marathon,” said Leonard Komon, who intends to move up to the marathon distance in the future.<\/p>\n

Komon finished ahead of eleven fellow Kenyans. Behind Cheroben the fight for second place was very close as well. Richard Mengich edged out Sylas Kimutai with both clocking 60:17. Chebii followed in fifth place with 60:40. Germany\u2019s Andr\u00e9 Pollm\u00e4cher ran a fine race with a PB of 62:45 in 13th place.<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s race Kenya\u2019s Agnes Mutune and Tadelech Bekele led from the beginning. With little more than two kilometres to go 22 year-old Bekele moved ahead. The pace was not as fast as expected and with the wind during the second half Bekele missed out on a sub 70 minutes finish. Clocking 70:05 she was eight seconds ahead of Mutune (70:13). “I am happy with this win and it is my plan to prepare for a marathon,” Bekele said. Running in third position for most of the race Germany\u2019s Sabrina Mockenhaupt kept the podium place, finishing in 71:43. Maja Neuenschwander (Switzerland) was fourth with 1:12:43.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running his debut at the distance Leonard Komon won the 34th Vattenfall BERLIN HALF MARATHON with a world-class time of 59:14, just edging out fellow-Kenyan Abraham Cheroben in a sprint finish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,116,106,72,1],"tags":[172,119,79,174],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-germany","category-half","category-kenya","category-news","tag-172","tag-berlin","tag-half-marathon","tag-leonard-komon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/gn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}