HITTING STREETS, BATTLING WEATHER
Patience pays off for city native Dunn, whose late push wins women’s field
In cold, damp conditions, runners start out in Sunday’s Rock ’n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon downtown. San Antonio native Janessa Dunn won the women’s title with a time of 2 hours, 56 minutes and 8 seconds. Lamech Mokono, a native of Kenya, won the men’s competition, finishing in 2 hours, 26 minutes and 38 seconds.
San Antonio native Janessa Dunn had finished second before.
Three times actually. Still, she decided to wait out both her competitors and the weather on a cold and wet Sunday morning.
The tactic worked. Dunn crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 56 minutes and 8 seconds to win the women's Rock ‘n' Roll San Antonio marathon. “I did the Athens marathon a couple weeks ago, so I didn't really have any high expectations,” the 30-year-old clinical care nurse said. “I had gotten second three times in this race, so I think the best preparation for trying to win a race is to get second multiple times.
“It went really well, the big key for today was to be patient, so I just had to maintain a slower pace than what I wanted to go.”
Dunn, who was the 2010
Express-news runner of the year when she ran for San Antonio FEAST, was not the only runner to sit back and let the race come to them Sunday.
Dominik Korir, 29, of Kenya, followed the advice of his
coaches to sit back and pass the pack late in the race.
“Sometime we have to follow instruction ... yesterday they told me ‘Don't push it. You need to stay in second [place] or the pack so you can feel the pace,' ” said Korir, who has also spent time in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Korir crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 34 seconds to win the half marathon. The male runner up, Reid Buchanan, led the race until Korir took over at the eighth mile. Buchanan traveled from San Diego, Calif., with his wife Sarah Pagano, who won the women's half-marathon title.
“My husband was doing this race and so I decided kind of last minute to come and do it,” Pagano said. We decided to come since I have never been to San Antonio before and I figured why not come check it out and run this race.”
Pagano, 31, won the race with a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes and 48 seconds. Like Korir in the men's race, Pagano sat behind the pack leaders and took over with three miles to go.
“I just kind of ran, like, very even splits and I was able to catch the woman that was ahead of me around mile nine, but then I stayed steady and I knew that if I did that, I would be able to come away with the win, so I was happy with that,” Pagano said.
Buchanan and his wife Pagano both compete professionally and are coming off big races. Pagano finished a marathon a month ago and decided after her brief time off, taking a first-time visit to San Antonio would be a great place to get in a rustbuster.
“I did the near city marathon about a month ago and I took a week and a half off of training and I'm just getting back into it,” Pagano said. I'm in the beginning stages of my longer-term training.”
At mile 10, there was a turn which directed the full-marathon competitors to do an extra loop. Another Kenyan native, Lemech Mokono, won the male marathon division with a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 38 seconds.
“Today was my long run,” Mokono said. “I went fast, I went out with the half-marathon runners, and like at the halfway [point] I was running by myself and I said ‘This is my long run, I am by myself,' and then at miles 7 and 8 when we entered the military base it was great.”
Mokono, 41, came off a poor race at the Philadelphia marathon where the weather conditions heavily affected his race. Monoko said he had been an admirer of San Antonio, and with his manager living in Grand Prairie, he decided to make the trip to Texas.
Mokono trains in New Mexico where he also trains younger athletes to become better runners.
“I like coming here. I've always liked the military base and San Antonio,” Mokono said. “It's a good city, it's good people here, I have always wanted to come and run here before I retire.”