Fuente: MiamiHerald.com
Great day for marathoners in Miami
More than 10,000 runners, including an international elite field, competed in the ING Miami Marathon and Half Marathon outside the AmericanAirline Arena.
By sdegnan@MiamiHerald.com
It was truly a day of diversity at the ING Miami Marathon and Half Marathon on Sunday in downtown Miami.
Everyday plodders and recreational racers competed among an international, elite field buoyed by the 2007 Guatemalan Pan American Games silver medalist winning the marathon and a 2008 U.S. Olympian crushing the course record in the half marathon.
Among the women, an American from Colorado won the marathon -- missing the cut to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Women's Marathon Trials by 13 seconds -- and a Colombian won the half marathon.
Even the weather impressed, for the most part staying in the low to mid 60s with overcast skies helping to keep the more than 10,000 starters a bit cooler. It rained lightly, mostly a mist, from about 9 to 11 a.m.
''It's the best!'' said marathon winner Jose Amado Garcia, 30, of Salama, Guatemala. ``God has been too great to me.''
Garcia, the Pan Am silver medalist who will represent Guatemala at Beijing in the 2008 Olympics, won the 26.2-mile marathon in 2 hours 17 minutes 43 seconds.
American Kelly Liljeblad, 35, of Boulder, Colo., missed the chance to qualify for the trials at Boston in April, but still led all women marathoners in 2:47:13. ''There's a big difference between running in 10 degrees and 62,'' said Liljeblad, who was disappointed and pleased at the same time. ``At Mile 20 my quads started to give out real bad... But it's always great to win.''
Yolanda Fernandez, 26, the mother of a 9-year-old son, set a course record in leading all female half marathoners in 1:16:01. The former course record: 1:17:44, by American Deirdre Brill in 2004.
The men's half marathon title went to Brian Sell, 29, of Rochester Hills, Mich., in 1:03:46. Sell, who will represent the United States at the Olympics this summer in China, obliterated the former Miami course record of 1:07:11, set last year by Kenyan Jared Nyamboki.
The Marathon and Half Marathon drew a combined field of 13,102 registrants, with 10,452 making it to the starting line -- 2,666 running the full marathon and 7,729 running the half, with 57 wheelchair racers.
The men's push-rim wheelchair winner was Colombian Arenas Gastillo, 34, of Bogota, in 1:54:32. No women competed in that division.
Leading the men's handcycle wheelchair division was Alejandro Albor, 44, of Elk Grove, Calif., in 1:13:11.
The women's handcycle wheelchair winner was Monique Van Der Vorst, 23, of the Netherlands, in 1:14:50.
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