A few hours after Great North is wrapping up in the UK, the field will take off at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon, the premier half on Competitor Group’s circuit. We will have five athletes from five countries in the elite field Sunday morning.
Adriana Nelson (ASICS, USA) will be looking to improve on her 69:59 PB, as well as take care of the technical matter of getting her qualifying standard for January’s US Olympic Marathon Trials; because she became a US citizen in April, Adriana’s marks before that date do not count toward her qualification for the standard. Rather than run a full marathon this autumn and risk lingering fatigue in January, Adriana is instead going to qualify at a “B” standard via a sub-75:00 half-marathon mark. After a month of training at Boulder’s 5300 foot altitude since finishing 2nd at Falmouth last month, Diane Johnson (ASICS, Burundi) is in top shape to be competitive on Sunday and also slice a very large chunk off her 74:20 PB, set at Philly last year. Mizuho Nasukawa (Sakura AC/Universal, Japan), the 2009 Tokyo Marathon champion, brings in a 71:58 PB and is testing herself midway through a current training camp in Boulder. Fiona Docherty (ASICS, New Zealand) is over some summer injury woes and prepping for an autumn marathon; in her last half, she knocked about two minutes from her PB with 72:49 at the New York City Half-Marathon in March.
On the men’s side, James Mwangi Macharia (NTN, Kenya) makes a rare race appearance outside Japan, having been with Japan’s NTN corporate team throughout his professional career. James has a 60:34 PB from the 2008 Rotterdam Half-Marathon, and is also the event recordholder for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half-Marathon – his 60:42 there in 2005 is still the only time anybody has broken 61 minutes in the sweltering Labor Day weekend race. James’ last half was at Sapporo in July, where he took 4th in 62:52 in another hot summer race.
Temps are forecast to be in the low- to mid-50s for Philadelphia Sunday morning, pretty darn sweet for fast running. Bret Michaels will rock the finishers with a post-race concert immediately following Sunday morning’s awards ceremony.
