Buffalo Chips Weekly News Update

New World Record in Half-Marathon

Haile Gebrselassie set up his own pacers and negotiated to run a separate “race” from all the regulars at the Phoenix Rock and Roll Marathon/Half-Marathon this past weekend. Under absolutely perfect conditions and on a flat and smooth course, his crew cruised with him through about 8km at 4:33/mile pace and when he dropped them, he speeded up to well under 4:30/mile to finish in an amazing 58:55 to shatter the previous WB by 21 seconds and become the first person to run under 59 minutes for the half-marathon ! According to the local reports, he also was officially credited with a new world best at 20km enroute.

The actual citizen half was won in 1:09 and the full in a solid 2:13 for men and 2:31 for women. All the top men and women were Ethiopians with one Japanese woman coming in 3rd on a training run at 2:35.

TOP CHIP FINISHER : Mary Coordt

Mary cruised the course on a last minute entry in 2:56 for 11th place female, finishing just out of the real $$$ which went 10 deep, but she was noted as FIRST female in the 35-39 Division.

Another DIVISION WINNER was Christine Iwahashi in the 50-54 group with a 3:17; the next woman in her age group was 18 minutes back. This was also an age group course record for the Phoenix event !

BIG NEW PR: Dave Michel

The focus for the Coordt “group” at Phoenix was husband Dave Michel’s goal of a new marathon PR. Dave had been under the close tutelage of Mary in his training over the last 3 months or so, and his workouts and tempo runs suggested the promise of a big improvement on his 3:35 best marathon time set in Portland a couple of years ago.

Coming through the half just behind the 3:30 pace group, Dave ran an impressive negative split to finish in 3:27 for an 8 minute new personal best. Wow!

Footnote: Actually Mary, Chris and Dave all ran negative splits!

Also Joel Contreras crossed in 4:08 looking very good at the 26 mile point and the Original Buffalo, Abe Underwood turned a stellar 4:52 in his first marathon in several years. Abe and Jeremiah Russell (age 70 now !) ran the race together in their mutual return to this distance and to celebrate Jeremiah’s big 70 age group!

Chip Lee Rhodes was also a full-marathon finisher there in Phoenix, but his official time is not available at this point.