Wednesday 18 April 2018

Kenny goes transatlantic for Boston Marathon but the Scottish weather follows him

Kenny Davidson was in action at the Boston Marathon in America on Monday 16th April.

Kenny at registration the day before and even then the weather was 'Baltic'
Boston Marathon is one of the premier marathons in the world and you have to run fast enough before you can even enter. For example men aged 18-34 you have to have run 3h05 or faster to even submit an entry form, and that does not guarantee entry as it’s oversubscribed every year. Kenny’s excellent performance at London Marathon in 2017, 3h03 as a V50 meant he was well inside his age group qualifying time. 
The race itself was the coldest Boston Marathon in the last 30 years and on top of the cold and wind and rain was simply quiet atrocious with conditions ranging from consistently heavy rain to a veritable monsoon. It is reported that about 2,300 runners receive medical treatment and there was an almost 5% drop out rate considerably more than usual. Many of the elites simply couldn’t live with the conditions with big name stars either pulling out in the later stages or hitting the wall. In a dramatic race the little known and somewhat eccentric Yuki Kawauchi from Japan came back from 90 seconds down to win the men’s race in a time of 2:15:58, the slowest winning time since 1976, but still almost two and a half minutes up on second placed Geoffrey Kirui (2:18:23), the defending champion who had clocked 2:09:37 in 2017.
The video here shows some of the condition to give you a flavour https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2018/04/16/american-desiree-linden-wins-women-race-boston-marathon/1H07wRzK05zlTYKd2hb5BP/story.html
Kenny commented:
Finished in 3:09:51 in what was a very wet and windy day...a very tough day for runners and supporters alike! Reminiscent of a not untypical day in the west of Scotland. A bit of snow on the ground at the start, puddles everywhere and lots of head on fire hosing in the squalls...
Pleased with my time given the conditions...not sure I could have run it any faster...
Dried out now and enjoying an evening rehydrating with our new best friend Samuel Adams...

An outstanding run all in all finishing 84th in the M50-54 age class and 3,315 overall out of 26,948. Kenny's result http://boston.r.mikatiming.de/2018/?pid=search&search[start_no]=5604

Photo of the race to give you an idea - I don't think Kenny's in there

No comments: