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Runners Predict Their Times in 33rd West Indies Lab Smile

2004 IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium, with Billy Bohlke chasing the great Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia.

V.I. Pace Runners Bulletin: Long distance runners learn an early lesson in their running careers. The successful ones learn to pace and run within their limits. It’s easier said than done; runners just try to come as close as possible to their predicted time to run a selected distance. Such was the case on a hot Saturday morning for the running of the 33rd West Indies Lab 5mile Road Race on St. Croix (the race was canceled in 2018 due to an electrical storm and in 1989 due to Hurricane Hugo).

It wasn’t about how fast someone ran Saturday’s race on the point-to-point course along the shore of East End Road; a hand full of runners had to predict their finish time at registration with the ranking of the finishers by prediction.

Place | Name | Time | Predicted | Difference
1] Savanah Logan 45:15 (43:55) 1:20
2] Kevin Moran 48:23 (50:00) 1:27
3] Megan Lambert 37:24 (39:00) 1:36
4] Billy Bohlke 31:40 (33:20) 1:40
5] Paul Evora 45:15 (43:15) 2:00
6] Randle Nielsen 39:36 (43:00) 3:29

Notes:
1] Billy Bohlke was first across the finish line … ironically, Bohlke announced to the group as they walked to the start line that Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya had just broken the 2:00 barrier for the marathon running 1:59.40 in Vienna, Austria. Earlier in the week Wallace Williams, founder and organizer of Saturday’s run and one of Billy’s coaches from childhood, posted to him a photo he took of Billy at the 2004 IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium, with Billy chasing the great Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, who holds the world record at 5000m and 10,000m and who most believe is the greatest runner ever.

He has since moved up to the marathon and on Sept. 27 at the BMW Berlin Marathon won in 2:01.41. He ran just 2 seconds off the world record set by Kipchoge at Berlin last year. Just out of the photo of the race taken by Williams in 2004 in Brussels was 18-year-old Kipchoge. These two have the two fastest marathon times in history. They are destined to meet again in the marathon.

2] St. Croix’s Bridget Klein, the current top marathoner in the Virgin Islands, had a personal best in the Eversource Hartford Marathon on Saturday, finishing in 3:06.12 and 102nd in a field of 1,500. She was the 14th female in a field of over 500 and 4th in her age group. She moves up to third on the all-time Virgin Islands marathon female ranking behind Lisha Hamilton 2:43 San Diego 2004; Jackie Morgan ran 2:55 in Jacksonville 1999.

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