Kara Goucher finished 3rd at Sunday's ING New York City Marathon.The Duluth native clocked 2:25:53 to become the highest finishing American at the New York City Marathon since 1994 and the fastest American women ever at the five-borough event.
Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain won the women's race with 2:23:56. Ludmila Petrova of Russian was 2nd in 2:25:43.
"[Radcliffe] hammered us with about 8 miles to go, and I caved," Goucher said. "My plan was to kind of do what I saw Gete [Wami] do last year, and that is to tuck behind whoever was leading and to gut it out as much as possible. I got broken with maybe 8 miles to go. Then I had to kind of recoup. I had to tell myself, it's 10k, you can do this. So I secured third place. The last two miles was a struggle. I had problems getting my fluids down and my stomach was really upset."
Goucher's performance is the fastest-ever debut marathon by an American. Goucher (pictured) was racing in the city of her birth and running on the course where her coach, Alberto Salazar, won three New York City Marathon titles.
"He just told me he believes I was built to do this," Goucher said. "He trained me the way he trained himself. He wrote me a little note today and put it in my backpack. It said 'Have faith.' He had me as prepared as possible. I knew I could handle the hills, I knew I could handle the course, I knew I could handle the pace."
Team USA Minnesota's Katie McGregor finished 10th among women in a PR 2:31:14.
Teammate Jason Lehmkuhle was 8th in the men's competition in 2:14:30.
Full results can be found HERE.
The Duluth News-Tribune has THIS story on Goucher.
The Star-Tribune has THIS one.
Photo by Victor Sailer/PhotoRun
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