Deba women’s race winner; Hussein, Loken USA
Masters champions
By Charlie Mahler, Running USA wire

MINNEAPOLIS – (October 3, 2010) – Sergio Reyes made
patience his winning virtue at the USA Men’s Marathon Championship
held at Sunday’s Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon.

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The Duarte, California resident waited out the early breakaway
of Luke Watson, David Jankowski and Seth Pilkington
and then delayed his own final bid for victory until 23.5 miles into the race to
win his first USA crown in 2 hours, 14 minutes, 2 seconds, a personal record.

“Basically, I kept telling myself not to take the lead
until I was ready to go for it,” Reyes explained. “I didn’t
want to step into that new territory until I was ready to commit the whole
way, which I finally did around 23 miles.”

Jeff Eggleston finished second in 2:14:09, while
Fernando Cabada, the 2008 USA and Twin Cities Marathon champion,
was third (2:15:25).

At the 29th race edition, ideal marathoning conditions –
in the form of starting line temperatures in the low 40s with calm winds
and sunny skies produced more than 4,400 finishers – greeted the USA Championship field running for the $25,000
national champion’s prize and two berths on Team USA for the IAAF World
Championships marathon in Daegu, South Korea next September.

Minnesota native Watson, Jankowski and Pilkington were the
early aggressors in the race, clocking miles under 5:10 to kick off the
proceedings. Watson proved an early DNF and Pilkington gave way later,
but Jankowski, a 28:27 10,000 meter runner making his marathon debut,
kept a margin on his pursuers until 17 miles.

When he was finally caught, the lead pack numbered just
the three runners who would divvy up the podium places – Reyes, Eggleston
and Cabada. Jankowski couldn’t keep pace with the new leaders, but he
held together to finish fourth in 2:16:15.

When Reyes, 28, who ran an inauspicious 2:38:04 marathon
debut at Twin Cities 2005, finally put hammer to tong as he shook off
Cabada thoroughly and put enough space between himself and Eggleston for
what turned out to be a 7 second win.

“They looked like they were starting to peak-out just
a little bit,” Reyes said of Eggleston and Cabada. “I hate to
leave it to the last quarter of a mile or last mile or anything, I did
not want it to come down to that, so I’m just going to go when I think
I can manage to finish without crawling.”

Eggleston kept Reyes close but Reyes was determined.

“The race isn’t over until the line,” the newly-minted
U.S. champion continued. “I pretty much pictured him on my heels
the entire way. So even in the last two-and-a-half miles, I imagined him
right behind me ready to kick me down at any point. I knew I couldn’t
drop a step – I had to keep pushing the entire way.”

Remembering his 2005 marathon debut at Twin Cities, Reyes
marveled at his inexperience.

“I had a lot to learn,” Reyes said of his initial
run from Minneapolis to St. Paul. “I was out of college, I was a
10K guy on the track and I thought the jump the marathon shouldn’t be
too bad – I’ve run a half or two before. I had a lot to learn back in
’05 to get me to where I am now.”

Eggleston established a new PR as the national runner-up,
bettering his January 2010 P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona debut by
23 seconds. He and Reyes earned the right to represent the United States
at the World Championships marathon.

Cabada, who was confident beforehand that he could win with
a less-than-perfect race, ran faster for third place in 2010 than he did
in his rain-soaked 2008 victory on the same course.

In the women’s Open race, Ethiopia’s Buzunesh Deba,
23, a Brooklyn, New York resident, became the first woman to win both
of Minnesota’s elite marathons in the same year with an unchallenged 2:27:24
win that echoed her Grandma’s Marathon victory last June.

For the 20th consecutive year, the event hosted the
USA Masters Marathon Championships. Masters standout Mbarak
Hussein, 45, from Albuquerque, N.M, who won both the overall and Masters
titles at this event in 2005 and 2006, returned to take another U.S. Masters
title, finishing seventh overall in 2:16:58, a pending U.S. 45-49 age
group record, while evergreen Susan Loken, 47, of Phoenix returned
to Twin Cities, running 2:44:43, to reclaim the Masters title she last
won in 2007.

29th Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon: USA Men’s &
Masters Championships
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Sunday, October 3, 2010

MEN
1) Sergio Reyes (CA), 2:14:02, $26,900
2) Jeff Eggleston (AZ), 2:14:09, $16,150
3) Fernando Cabada (CO), 2:15:25, $11,000
4) David Jankowski (NC), 2:16:15, $7800
5) Drew Shackleton (CA), 2:16:31, $5700
6) Michael Reneau (OR), 2:16:47, $4600
7) Mbarak Hussein, 45, NM, 2:16:58*, $12,550
8) Trent Briney (AZ), 2:17:47, $2500
9) Donovan Fellows (MN), 2:18:05, $1900
10) Craig Leon (OH), 2:18:29, $900

MASTERS Men (40+)
1) Hussein, see above
2) Carl Rundell, 42, MI, 2:26:58, $5800
3) Matt Sandercock, 41, PA, 2:27:23, $4000
4) Bob Weiner, 45, CO, 2:29:34, $2000
5) Dennis Simonaitis, 48, UT, 2:29:48, $1200
*pending U.S. 45-49 age group record (previous, 2:23:35, Sam Ngatia (CO), Twin Cities Marathon, 10/03/04)

WOMEN
1) Buzunesh Deba (ETH), 2:27:24, $25,000
2) Svetlana Ponomarenko, 40, RUS, 2:35:23, $16,500
3) Serkalem Abrha (ETH), 2:36:16, $10,000
4) Alena Vinitskaya (RUS), 2:36:31, $7000
5) Galina Alexandrova (RUS), 2:38:21, $5000
6) Violetta Kryza, 42, POL, 2:40:35, $5000
7) Valentina Calimova (RUS), 2:41:26, $3000
8) Caitlin Chrisman (NC), 2:41:53, $3750
9) Leah Kiprono (KEN), 2:43:16, $1000
10) Ruth Perkins (WA), 2:43:19, $1500
11) Ashley Tousley (IA), 2:44:09, $850
12) Susan Loken, 47, AZ, 2:44:43, $8650
13) Carol Jefferson (PA), 2:44:44, $550
14) Tamara Karrh, 40, GA, 2:44:53, $5250
15) Krista Plummer (PA), 2:45:17, $400
16) Meghan Arbogast, 49, OR, 2:45:48, $3850

MASTERS Women (40+)
1) Ponomarenko, see above
2) Kryza, see above
3) Loken, see above
4) Karrh, see above
5) Arbogast, see above
6) Jill Boaz, 43, CA, 2:46:47, $2000
7) Marybeth Reader, 41, MI, 2:51:08, $1200

Complete race results and more at: mtcmarathon.org