It's not the oldest, or even the biggest, of the hundreds of "turkey trots" which will be held on Thanksgiving Day in the United States on Thursday, but the Manchester Road Race is surely the grandest. Amongst the nearly 10,000 athletes which organizers expect to complete the 4.748 mile course will be national and international class runners, who want to join the race's prestigious winner's list.
"It usually is difficult to field elites in the Fall after the Olympics, but I feel we have a remarkably stong field of veterans and youngsters," wrote David Prindiville, who organizes the elite athletes for the race, in an e-mail message.
Two-time men's champion Andrew Letherby of Australia would like to see his name added to that winner's list one more time. The 35 year-old Commonwealth Games medalist, out-legged Irish Olympian Martin Fagan on the race's famous uphill finish last year. Less than two seconds separated them, and USA steeplechaser Brian Olinger was just another five seconds behind.
"Letherby, Fagan and Olinger are set to battle again," wrote Prindiville. "Mark (Carroll) is back to chase, and (so are) a large group composed of Haron Lagat, Darren Brown, Fasil Bizuneh, Christian Hesch, Mike Sayenko, Andrew Lemoncello, Andrew Carlson, and Seth Summerside.
The 2007 women's champion and USA Olympian, Amy Begley, had to withdraw from the race due to unspecified injury problems. That leaves Ethiopian-born Teyba Naser as the race favorite, but five-time Manchester champion and two-time Olympian Amy Rudolph also hopes to be in the hunt for victory. Other contenders include USA steeplechaser Delilah DiCrescenzo, former University of Iowa star Diane Nukuri of Burundi, all-purpose road racer Alemtehsay Misganaw of Ethiopia, former NCAA D-II champion for Grand Valley Mandi Zemba, former American University star Samia Akbar, and recent NTELOS 8-K champion Jane Murage of Kenya.
The hilly course is very challenging. The event records of 21:19, set by Phillimon Hanneck of Zimbabwe in 1995, and 23:59 set by the late Emilie Mondor of Canada in 2003, will be hard to beat.
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