Bradley Keefe of Winnipeg survived a backstretch battle with Les Friesen of Steinbach and Calgary's Heather Magill who lives in East Grand Forks cruised to a 16 minute win at the 38th Manitoba Marathon on Father's Day in Winnipeg.
Keefe, who has finished runner-up the past two years and in third place in 2011, 2012 & 2013, lost the lead and then caught and passed Friesen in the last two miles to win the marathon for the first time.
“For the last 10K I was battling hard,” said Keefe who finished in a time of 2:43:32. “I wasn't running very fast but I was trying to just focus on one mile at a time. In the last two miles I actually lost the lead and normally that means you're done. A friend drove by, a good training partner of mine, told me I had to turn it over, and I closed the gap.”
“I knew with a mile to go, after five years of being third or second, I had the motivation to hurt for the last mile,” added Keefe who was 31 seconds faster than Friesen. “I really wanted to win. That was the goal. Not really a time-goal this year. Just wanted to win and whatever the time is I don't really care today.”
2015 champion Thomas Omwenga of Kenya had the lead until the 20-mile mark and shortly after pulled out of the race with a leg injury.
Magill won her second straight women's full marathon title in a time of 2:55:55.
That was 16 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of Alice Sherwin of Winnipeg.
“I felt more pressure this year than I did last year,” said Magill. “It was really awesome to come back and win it again.”
Winnipeg's Abduselam Yussuf and Nicole Walker finished first in the half marathon.
2016 Manitoba Marathon results
Fri, Apr 19, 7:00 PM
Full-time, Agriculture, Skilled Trades
Featured