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| Mohamed Trafeh goes by Kara Goucher in pursuit of the equalizer bonus. Photo by Gene Niemi |
As it did last year, it came down to the final stages. This year Trafeh did not catch Bawcom until the pair were in sight of the St. Paul Cathedral around 600 yards from the finish, Trafeh said, where he finally made up the six minute, 31 second headstart the women had. Trafeh's time was 46:56. Bawcom ran 53:43.
"My legs were numb the entire race," said Trafeh. "I never warmed up." Despite wearing two hats, thigh length shorts below his regular shorts, a T-shirt and arm warmers under his singlet, and gloves Trafeh could not get warm. Tuning out any thoughts of impending hypothermia, Trafeh kept ramping up the pace in an attempt to catch the women in front of him.
The rest of the men's field, he said, seemed to be keying off him. When he would slow down or speed up, so would they. By five miles he saw that if he was going to catch the women, he was going to have to do it himself. "I put in a big move," said Trafeh, and he didn't look back. He threw in a couple of 4:29 miles, said Jim Estes, the USATF Director of Events, who was watching the race unfold.
Earlier in the women's race, after a 5:13 first mile, the pace slowed dramatically to a 5:47 in the seocnd, said Bawcom. That dawdling pace she knew might have doomed her chances at crossing the line first overall. "We needed to run 5:18s(average per mile) to beat the men," Bawcom. "In that one mile we lost 30 seconds." Like the men, everyone else in the race was focused on her. Duluth's Kara Goucher. coming off a six week layoff after the Olympics and just beginning to get into serious training, believed she was capable of running around 54 minutes, and that dictated her pace.
When she did pick it up to a 5:10 to shake things up, Bawcom kicked it into high gear. "She must have run 5:06," Goucher said. "My legs weren't ready for that." So, the only remaining drama was when Trafeh would catch Bawcom. He started picking off the first of the women's field when he made his break in mile five, then methodically proceeded to reel in the rest, passing Bowcom only about 200 yards later than he did last year.
The men's chase pack, like Goucher with Bawcom, didn't have the legs to stay with Trafeh, but pulled each other along. Ben True, last year's runner-up finished second in 47:19, followed by Jacob Riley(47:22), Tim Ritchie(47:25), and Brent Vaughn(47:26). Riley said he was moving along well in second until he had the dry heaves as the neared the finish and True passed him. Behind the chase pack were a couple of Team USA Minnesota's crew. Andrew Carlson, getting ready for next month's ING New York City Marathon, finished seventh in 47:48, a PR. Antonio Vega, in his first race back after around two years recovering from hip surgeries, was ninth in 47:53, ten seconds shy of his PR.
"Physically I'm in good shape," said Vega. "I just went to sleep mentally when the chase pack broke off. I let them get away and couldn't get back up." He was pleased with the result though because there were times during the past two years when he was not sure he'd ever be able to run at this level again. It was a testing time, so he was all smiles at the positive result and how he felt after the race. "No aches or pains," he said. All seemed good once again.
Even though Bawcom fell short on getting the equalizer bonus, she didn't go home empty handed in "extras." Bawcom's win in the 10 Mile clinched the women's title in the US Running Circuit which is worth a $6,000 bonus to add onto the $12,000 that the men's and women's champions received for their wins.in the 10-Mile.
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