As Praban Felgitscher crossed the finishing line as first at the Self-Transcendence Marathon in New York (25.08.2006) everybody was surprised. Nobody did count on it. At the start were also last years winner Gyula Szabo and Prapat Bogush. Both of them went in previous marathons already under 2:30 and wanted to run under this magic mark once more this year.

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In order to run the right pace, the two top athletes managed to get a pacemaker who would pull them over the first laps. The only problem was the pacemaker run too fast. The leading duo passed the halfmarathon mark in 1:13, and so it was only a question of time when they would break down. First Gyula could not keep up with Prapat and then Praban was sneaking in from behind and took the lead over in the last round. In the last round the man from Graz pushed harder and reached with 2:34:14 a new personal best. Prapat lost 5 minutes to Praban in the last round and reached the finish in 2:39:07. Third stood the young Luke Armstrong from New Zealand, who could win out over Gyula on the last kilometre in 2:41:20.

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Among the women there was a stout-hearted duel between the American Megan Duerring and Garbitashri Webster of New Zealand. Garbitashri was the fastest at the beginning, after about half of the race though the American took the lead. Both runners did excellent times under 3 hours: Megan in 2:56:45 and Garbitashri in 2:59:52. Dhavala Scott from Schottland finished slightly over 3 hours (3:04:53).

The heavy rain falls provided some drop outs among the slower runners.

Photos can be viewed under http://gallery.srichinmoyraces.org/usa/2006marathon.

 

Roby Schiltz