Competing in his first marathon, ace road racer Tyler Pennel, 26, a Colorado native who now trains at altitude in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, won the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., Sun., Oct. 5, under chilly conditions in 2:13:32.

Jared Ward, 26, of Provo, Utah, was second in 2:14:00 and Scott Smith, 28, of Oklahoma City, Okla., third in 2:14:40.

Pennel, who had finished fourth in the U.S. half-marathon championship last January – in 1:01:44 – and then just missed winning the national 10K title in July when he was outlegged over the last quarter of a mile, had anticipated a victory was possible in his first attempt at the marathon. And that’s how it played out, although the hills on appropriately named Summit Avenue in the latter part of the race tested his confidence to some extent.

“I set the goal to come out here and go for the win,” he said after the race, which netted him $26,500 in prize money for his victory. “I was hoping to run 2:12 or 2:13. But, hey, I won. I’m not going to complain.”

Running in 37-degree temperatures, a pack of about 15 runners set a conservative 5:15-per-mile pace in the early miles. The lead group had dwindled down to nine runners, none of them willing to make a bold move yet, by the time they passed Lake Nokomis.

“I don’t think anyone was willing to be the sacrificial lamb,” Scott Smith, the ultimate third-place finisher, said afterwards. “So everyone just bunched up. It made for a fun race, because you looked around and thought, ‘Any one of these guys could take it to the finish.’ "

It was, in fact, Smith who made the first move, at 20 miles, when he felt strong enough to think he could perhaps break away from the others.

But it was no go, as Pennel proved stronger and soon took control of the race.

Reviewing his race approach afterwards, Pennel commented, “I just said, ‘Get relaxed, stay relaxed and get to 20 miles. That’s when the hills start, and we’ll see where it goes from there.’ "

Where it went from there, as Pennel took the lead and broke away when the hills started, was into the great unknown that marathoners know all too well.

“It was scary,” Pennel said. “I got to the top of the hills, and I was running as fast as I could. I just kept pushing and pushing, hoping they wouldn’t catch me in the last mile.”

There was no cause to worry, it turned out, as he won by almost half a minute and looked surprisingly fresh as he raised his arms in triumph at the finish. It was a very impressive performance by a very talented runner (he won the NCAA Division II 10,000 meters in 2012 while attending Western State College in Colorado), who now becomes a factor on the national scene in the marathon just as he has been in the shorter distances.

The top six runners in the race all broke 2:16, which was also very impressive given the chilly weather and the hills over the last part of the race.

Ian Burrell, 29, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was fourth in 2:15:08, Tyler McCandless, 27, of Boulder, Colo., fifth in 2:15:26, and Nathan Martin, 24, of Spring Arbor, Mich., sixth in 2:15:46.

The first 10 all finished under 2:18.

The women’s winner at the Twin Cities Marathon was Esther Erb, 28, of Richmond, Va., who chased down the leaders after having to take a porta-potty break 20 miles into the race. In winning, she posted the second fastest time of her career – 2:34:00 – despite her emergency pit stop, which cost her approximately 30 seconds.

Heather Lieberg, 35, of Helena, Mont., and Brianne Nelson, 33, of Golden, Colo., had led through most of the race – with Erb, who finished third in this race last year, keeping them in sight from a distance.

“I was trailing (Lieberg and Nelson) for a long time,” Erb said later. “I could see them up there, and I was just trying to chip away (at their lead). After I stopped in the portajohn, I made that 30 seconds up pretty quickly.”

Erb finally caught up and took the lead with about a mile to go. By that point, Lieberg and Nelson had begun to struggle.

“It was back and forth between us until mile 24 or 25,” Lieberg said of her battle with Nelson. “Then Esther came (up). She was 20 yards behind us. But my legs were pretty shot, and she passed us.”

Erb was now leading but she was also concerned. “In the last mile, I was kind of running scared. I was hoping they weren’t right on my tail, because I know both of them are really fast. I didn’t want to look back.”

At the finish Erb was eight seconds up on Lieberg, who finished second in 2:34:08, and 22 seconds up on Nelson, who was third in 2:34:22.

The first eight women in the race finished under 2:40.

Erb won $26,500 in prize money for her victory as did Tyler Pennel. In addition, since this race was officially the U.S. championship in the marathon, both she and Pennel earned spots on the U.S. team that will compete in the marathon at the 2015 world championships in Beijing, China.

Erb said after her victory Sunday, “For me, the most important thing was making the U.S. team (for the world championships).”

The top age-group performance in the Twin Cities Marathon – and this really wasn’t much of a surprise – was the 2:59:39 run by Masters marvel Christine Kennedy, 59, of Los Gatos, Calif. Running in her last marathon before she turns 60 in late December, and coming off a respiratory illness that seriously hampered her final preparations for this race, she still broke three hours (no other 59-year-old woman has done that) and posted the best age-graded score (100.00) in the race, just as she had done in the Boston Marathon earlier this year.

When she returned home to sunny California the next day, she said of the Twin Cities race, “It was really cold! For the first time that I can remember I had to wear a hat and gloves in a marathon, and it took me a long time to get into the race.  It was one of the toughest races I’ve had in a long time. Having to deal with my illness didn’t help. One week of not running and one week of just easy running, it was really hard to get going. I never really got into the race, and in the last mile my calves crampt up. Under the circumstances, I was very happy to break three hours and finish as the fifth Masters runner overall.” 

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