Florence Jebet Kiplagat of Kenyan participated in the Barcelona Half Marathon on Sunday, February 15, 2015. Kiplagat set a new world record when she crossed the finish line with the clock stopped at 1:05:09. She cut three seconds off of the previous record, which she set in the Spanish City Half Marathon in 2014. Kiplagat did not have much competition from other female runners, Elizabeth Lee of Ireland was the runner-up with a time of 1:14:06, nearly nine minutes behind Kiplagat. Kiplagat actually paced herself with two of the male runners for the first 10K of the race, Marc Roig and Ezekiel, they were seven seconds ahead of the world record at 31:02. After she distanced from her pacesetters she still kept her world record time up wit splits of 46:14 at the 15K and 1:01:54 at the 20K. Kiplagat will headline the London Marathon on Sunday, April 26.
I think that it is amazing that these long-distance runners are able to continuously break these world records. I have ran two half marathons and my best time was 2:08:06. Kiplagat won the Berlin Marathon in 2011 with a time of 2:19:44, she ran twice as far in the same amount of time. I get frustrated when people say that cross country runners are not athletes. They certainly are athletes! They put just as much time in to their sport as any other professional athletes. These runners who are winning the Boston Marathon, the New York Marathon, and the London Marathon, running is their job and they get paid to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment