Running in her Marathon debut, Olena Burkovska of Ukraine set a 2:30:50 course record at the 86th edition of the International Peace Marathon in Kosice, Slovakia, the oldest in 42.2 Km race in Europe. Kenyan Jacob Chesire won the men’s race with a lifetime best of 2:10:59.
Burkovska’s performance sliced 38 seconds from the 2:31:28 record set by Czech Alena Peterkova in 1989, while Chesire, who was alone for the final 20 kilometres of the race and struggled with the wind, produced the third fastest in the history of the race.
In sunny, but windy conditions the pace was fast at the first five kilometre (14:55) mark, followed by 30:27 at 10 km and 45:51 at 15 km, which was a 2:08:40 pace set forth by Kenyan pacemaker Elijah Tarus. At the half-way mark a sub-2:09 was still possible with a 1:04:18 split. After the 25th kilometre when the pacemakers faded , Chesire took the lead but nobody really helped him….Read More