Honolulu Marathon – News – Kenyans Lonyangata & Limo Win Honolulu Marathon In Soaking Humidity

KENYANS LONYANGATA & LIMO WIN HONOLULU MARATHON IN SOAKING HUMIDITY
By Rich Sands, @sands
(c) 2023 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.

HONOLULU (10-Dec) – Kenyans Paul Lonyangata and Cynthia Limo patiently waited before making decisive moves to earn convincing wins at today’s Honolulu Marathon in challenging conditions. High humidity and long stretches of strong winds, combined with the course’s notorious hills, led to slow finish times in the 51st running of this race, the fourth largest marathon in the United States.

The race began in the darkness at 5:00 am local time with a fireworks display. Dickson Chumba of Kenya, the designated pacer, set an aggressive early pace for men’s leaders, coming through 5-K in 15:17, which projects to a sub-2:09 time. (The course record is 2:08:00.) In his wake were Lonyangata, fellow Kenyan Reuben Kiprop Kerio, Ethiopian Abayneh Degu and a pair of U.S.-based Eritreans, Filmon Ande and Tsegay Weldlibanos.

Through 10-K, the pace was picking up, with Chumba –a three-time winner of World Marathon Majors races– in front at 30:25. Kerio had drifted back and was 19 seconds behind. But the pace started to lag on an uphill section between 13-K and 14-K and Kerio quickly regained contact with the pack. Meanwhile, Weldlibanos, who had been fighting the flu in the week leading up to the race, was the first casualty, dropping out around 15-K.

During a long stretch along Kalaniana’ole Highway the pace was lagging in the 5:20 per mile range and it was clear that this would be a tactical battle. “This is the graveyard of fast times,” Honolulu Marathon Association president Dr. Jim Barahal, riding in the lead vehicle, lamented of this notoriously windy stretch. “But it means we’re going to have a great finish.”

Indeed, the halfway point was reached in a modest 1:07:19. Chumba stepped off just before 25-K and moments later Lonyangata briefly surged ahead. The field came back to him within minutes, but as the course entered a less windy section, he made what would be the day’s decisive move. His pace quickened dramatically as he covered the 18th mile in 4:49. By 30-K (1:35:51) he had built a five-second lead over Kerio, with Ande another five seconds back. (Degu had dropped out some time after halfway, leaving only three men in the elite field.)

Lonyangata –who had finished second in his previous appearance in Honolulu in 2014, and owns a personal best of 2:06:10 from the 2017 Paris Marathon– continued to…