**Organizers Decide Against Drug Testing**
By Claudia Piepenburg
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
LOS ANGELES (19-Mar) -- With the exception of defending champion Wesley Korir, Kenya (2:08:24 CR in 2009) and Richard Limo (Kenya) who comes into Sunday's marathon here with the fastest time (2:06:45) none of the other five elite runners at the Honda LA Marathon press conference were familiar with the new course that runs from Dodger Stadium, passing by several iconic L.A. landmarks to the finish at the Santa Monica pier.
Recently married Korir, who is spending his honeymoon in L.A., and has been training in California for over a month because of the inclement winter weather in his home of Louisville, Ky., said that he's truly excited about the new course, which drops a healthy 131 meters, because "...if you run it right, you'll get a good time." He noted that he has been doing a lot of downhill training to prepare himself for the downhill between mile 14 and 15, and miles 24 to the finish.
When asked if he still had the leg speed should the race come down to a two-man sprint to the finish, Limo, who has a 5000m best of 12.56.72 and was known for his finishing kick before he retired from the track, said: "When you train for the marathon you lose speed, but get stronger, so I've been finishing up my long runs with faster surges." Like Korir, Limo mentioned that the since the harder parts of the race are in the first half "... you won't be so tired at the end" and his comment that the second half was definitely his favorite part, generated much laughter throughout the room.
Despite their unfamiliarity with the course, the other athletes, probably not surprisingly all agreed that it's designed to be fast. Paige Higgins (2:33:06 PB), the fastest American woman in the field, indicated that she felt that if the weather cooperated and there wasn't a headwind, she could run a sub-2:30, possibly in the 2:27-2:28 range. Higgins, who ran 2:33:22 at Chevron Houston on January 17 said that she and her coach, Greg McMillan, decided that her training was going well enough (she had two 150-mile weeks in her last training cycle, alternating with 140-mile weeks) that she should "...go for it. It's not a world championships or Olympic year, so we figured this could be a breakthrough for me."
Tariku Jufar, Ethiopia (2:08:10), who was able to get in only three months of solid training after being struck by a car and breaking his collar bone while on a workout last September indicated that he "...wouldn't make the same mistakes I did last year", when he led through mile 24 and ended up finishing second. And Laban Kipkemboi, Kenya (2:08:38), returning for the fourth time, said: "I'm surprised with this course change, and I made some mistakes before when I went out too fast, so I will calculate what I will do on this new course", no doubt anticipating like the others that the revised course will play to the strengths of the runners who are patient in the first half.
Korir and Higgins were the only athletes who responded when asked about the decision not to drug test. Korir said that he had just found out about it a few days before and was surprised but went on to say that: "...you have to figure that everyone is clean." Higgins went further saying: "It is what it is, but if LA wants to be recognized in the future as a first tier marathon, they're going to have to drug test."
Ashu Kasim (Ethiopia), seeded first for the women with a PB of 2:25:49, who is running LA for the first time, spoke very little during the nearly 45-minute press conference, although she did say through her interpreter that she felt the 18:47 gender challenge time differential would be very good for the women, while second seed Silvia Skvortsova, Russia (2:26:24 PB), who finished third in LA in 2009 said: "It doesn't matter to me, what matters is what kind of shape you're in. I will be running my best no matter." Skvortsova also got the crowd laughing again when she remarked: "I've seen that Russian women win every other year, so I figure that this is my year to win."
After the press conference Peter Abraham, the event's creative director said that "the course is a bit of a mystery because no one has ever run it before, so it's really tough to know how fast it will be. But we're so excited to have such a strong men's field, this is the first time LA has ever had a 2:06 marathoner; we're expecting that it will be fast unless it gets too warm." He went on to say that if it's warm, the conditions could benefit Korir, who had said earlier that he prefers warmer races. "Definitely the ones to watch are Korir, Limo and Jufar." He expects Kasim and Skvortsova to run well, and added that Higgins will of course be the "sentimental favorite." When asked about the decision to not drug test, Abraham said: "it's definitely on our radar screen, we have plans to do so in the future."
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