Michael Wardian headed the American contingent at the 89.28 km Comrades Marathon by placing 26th. He ran smart and moved up through the field all day. During this 55.48 mile (89.28 km) race, he was 104th at 62km to go, 58th at halfway, 39th at 31k to go, 32nd with 18k left, and 30th with 7k to go. He ran 6:02 and came through 50 miles with a PR split of 5:21. Nice work, Wardian! Keep reading for more on Wardian’s race. (Looking for more background on Michael? We interviewed him in the days leading up to Comrades.)
Kami Semick ran solid all day long. She was fourth at each of the five major check points while running side-by-side with her North Face teammate Lizzy Hawker of the UK for the early stages of the race. Semick finished in 6:32:54 for fourth. Hawker faded a bit to take sixth in 6:39:43. Nikki Kimball (misspelled as Kimbell on the Comrades site) was 20th woman in 7:26:37. Kimball ran through all of the major check points between 23rd and 25th position.
American 50k record holder Josh Cox ran into some stomach problems a little after halfway where he was in 56th. He quickly faded into the mid-300s before working his way back up to finish 186th in 6:51:29.
Running Times Trail Editor took on a new challenge in running 55+ miles on the roads. He crossed the line in 8:19:02. Bart Yasso made it all the way to Durban under the cutoff. He ran 11:33:37.
Overall Champions
Last year’s champion Stephen Muzhingi of Zimbabwe repeated the feat with a time of 5:29:01 ahead of South Africans Ludwick Mamabolo (5:35:29) and Sergio Matsoeneng (5:35:58).
The Russian Nurgalieva twins continue their dominance of the Comrades womens field. Last year, Olesya Nurgalieva (6:12:12) won just a minute ahead of her sister (6:13:14). This year, Elena crossed the line three steps ahead of her Oleysa to win her fifth Comrades title. This weekend, the metronomic duo ran 6:13:04 and 6:13:05 respectively. How’s that for consistency? Fellow Russian Marina Myshlyanova took home third place in 6:26:03 to better her fourth place showing in 2009.
Elena Nurgalieva winning the 2010 Comrades Marathon.
Wardian’s Report
Back to Michael Wardian’s race. Here’s the update he sent us this morning:
I ran right about 6:02 (went through 50 miles in 5:21, which I was happy about as that is PR by 30 minutes, but I need to be faster). I think I was probably the 1st “Novice” (1st time doing the race, but not sure of that yet. They were checking.) and also 1st USA. Folks at the finish mentioned that there was one (1) “white” guy (Ian, he ran Miwok, he got me with 3.5K to go, but helped me get like 4 guys, so that was ok) in front of me, but they could be wrong about that.
That was tough, but think was a good starting point. I think with some more experience, here, I can be in contention.
I had a little bit of a sick stomach, those jokers put some disinfectant in the water satchels, which no one told us about. I also getting random peoples stuff (got something that I swear might have been the liquor Sambuca), so that was a tad annoying; however, I learned a ton and, again, think I can improve drastically the next few times.
Just got out of Doping Control. That was cool, did the “A” and “B” sample, so we will see what it comes back with. I have no idea if I will pass, as I was just eating whatever my “seconds” (crew) where giving and as mentioned it was other people’s stuff, so at one point when Josh fell off, I got his bottle and a nasty energy gel.
You wouldn’t believe how many people were out, think you would dig it.
