HOKINTON-TO-BOSTON, April 15 — It took almost two hours for the women’s race at the 128th Boston Marathon to actually become a race, but the extended — and largely uneventful — prelude ultimately set the stage for a thrilling finish. Over the final 4 miles Hellen Obiri gradually thinned out the pack with a withering pace and cruised home to defend her title. With this decisive victory, her third straight in a World Marathon Majors race, Obiri is surely now at the top of Athletics Kenya’s selection list for the Paris Olympics.
It was a dramatic end to a day that started unremarkably. Under pleasant conditions (sunny and 56F/13C at the start), a crowded pack covered the first 5K in 16:36 but then progressively let the pace lag. The leaders came through 10K in 33:27 (16:51 split), then continued to back off, reaching 15K in 50:58 (17:31) and 20K in 1:08:42 (17:44). At halfway (1:12:33), there were 20 women running together easily, spread out across the road.
There was little change from there, and at 20 miles the lead group still numbered 15. The 21st mile was covered in an unspectacular 5:47. Finally, Obiri decided to start shaking the race up with a 5:17 for the next mile. This was just her fourth marathon but having won the previous two (Boston and NYC last year), she admitted that her confidence has grown. “This year my training was perfect, and I trusted everything we were doing,” she said of her work in Boulder, Colorado, under the guidance of Dathan Ritzenhein, which combined long runs and speed work. “I knew there would be strong runners [in the race]. I tried to do everything in training, and the training was even better than last year.”
A dozen women remained in contention but American Emma Bates, coming back from an injury that forced her to miss February’s Olympic Trials, started to lose contact. Earlier, she had taken turns at the front of the pack and even high-fived fans as they went through the so-called “scream tunnel” in Wellesley.
The tempo only got hotter from there. A 4:57 split for the 23rd mile whittled the pack down to five: Obiri and fellow Kenyans Sharon Lokedi and Edna Kiplagat, plus Ethiopians Workenesh Edesa (winner of January’s Osaka Marathon in 2:18:51) and Buze Diriba. The next mile, largely downhill, was covered in an eye-popping 4:41, with the Kenyan…
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