Get in Gear Sports Champion-Studded Fields

If you intend to win Saturday's Get in Gear 10K, be prepared to beat a former champion or two to do so.

Lining up for the 32nd running of the race that calls itself "Minnesota's Annual Rite of Spring" will be the past two women's champions, two of the last three men's titlists, and all three of the men's medalists last year.

Get in Gear pays $1000 to the men's and women's champs.

2008 men's champion Sammy Malakwen of Kenya returns to defend his title. He'll face 2005 Get in Gear champ Moses Waweru as well as last year's runner-up and third-placer William Serem and Richard Kandie, respectively, all of Kenya.

Team USA Minnesota's Antonio Vega and Chris Lundstrom are the top local contenders for a title not won by a native Minnesota since 1996 when Chaska High School and University of Minnesota alum Curt Kotsonas was champion.

Additional male contenders include the 2009 Human Race 8k champ Brad Lowery of Brookings, South Dakota, Jeremy Polson of Duluth, last weekend's Fitger's 5K winner, and Kenyans John Njoroge, Jacob Kenbagor, Japheth Ngojoy and Eric Chirchir. Chirchir recently won the All American City 10K in Texas in 29:12.

In women's competition 2008 champion Kim Magee of Bloomington, a University of Minnesota alum, and the 2007 champion Alemtsehay Misganaw of Ethiopia headline the field. Magee won last year's Get in Gear in 36:50. Misganaw won the year before in 32:58, just six seconds off Janis Klecker's 1992 course record.

Others who should contend include Jenna Boren of St. Paul, who won the Human Race 8k in March, Amy Lyons of Mounds View, who won the Fitger's 5K in Duluth last weekend, Kenyan Hellen Mugo, who sports a 34:38 PR, and Jennifer Houck of Duluth.

Top returning masters runners include John Mirth of Platteville, Wisconsin, who has been the first male master from 2005 through 2008 and Bonnie Sons of Shorewood, who has been the first female master's runner at the Get in Gear 10K for the same span. Sons ran the Boston Marathon on Monday in 3:15:21, however.

Team Circuit Resumes ... The Get in Gear 10K is the second stop on the 2009 USATF Minnesota Team Circuit and serves as the USATF Minnesota 10K Championship race. Defending men's and women's Team Circuit titlists Run N Fun will seek to avenge the opening race defeat they both suffered at the St. Patrick's Day Human Race 8K, where TC Running Company won both open division titles.

Get in Gear events begin at 8:00 a.m. with a 2K Fun Run and build to the start of the 10K and inaugural Half Marathon at 9:00 a.m. A 5K race follows at 9:20 a.m. Some 7,000 participants are expected for the Get in Gear races, including 4,000 for the 10K and 1000 in the sold-out Half Marathon race.