The United Nations came to the 42^nd Honolulu Marathon, Sun., Dec. 14, as foreign  runners – led by Kenyans Wilson Chebet and Joyce Chepkirui -- swept the top 10 places in both the men’s and women’s races on a rainy morning in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In all, runners from six different countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Japan, Croatia, Russia and Burundi – monopolized the top 10 spots. Noticeably absent from this list of nations, of course, was the United States.

In a race that started at 5 a.m. in the morning, several runners ran stride for stride over the final miles of the men’s competition, but the 29-year-old Chebet, three-time winner of the Amsterdam Marathon, pulled away down the stretch to finish 29 seconds ahead of fellow Kenyan Paul Lonyangata, who’s only 22, as they ran 2:15:35 and 2:16:04 respectively.   

Geb Abraha, also 22, of Ethiopia finished third in 2:16:27 with another Kenyan, Benjamin Kolum, 37, taking fourth in 2:16:37.

Asked to comment on his run in the rain, Chebet, who was making his debut in this race and was strong enough to win despite travel problems which prevented him from getting to Honolulu until Friday, just smiled and said that the conditions were “terrible from the start.” Fortunately, he and all the others were running in Honolulu, Hawaii, not Anchorage, Alaska.

A Kenyan man winning this race is nothing new. Chebet’s victory is the eighth consecutive year a Kenyan has won the Honolulu Marathon – and it was the 18^th time in the last 19 years the winner has been from Kenya!

The men’s race record for the Honolulu Marathon is 2:11:12, set by Kenya’s James Muindi in 2004. Muindi, incidentally, won this race six times!

The winner last year was Gilbert Chepkwony, who was in the lead pack for a good part of the race on Sunday, but then fell back, leaving seven runners at the front to fight it out for the victory.

Joyce Chepkirui, the women’s winner on Sunday, took control of the race around midway and became the first Kenyan woman to win in Honolulu as she ran 2:30:23. She said the rain didn’t affect her race strategy.

Lisa Nemec, 27, of Croatia was second in 2:31:35. Another Kenyan, Isabella Ochichi, 33, finished third in 2:32:22, and Valentina Galinouva, 28, of Russia was fourth in 2:32:26.

Previously Russian or Ethiopian runners had dominated the women’s race in Honolulu.

Chepkirui, who’s 25, passed the halfway point in 1:13:07, on target to break the race record of 2:27:19 set by Russia’s Lyubov Denisova in 2006, but even though Chepkirui slowed over the last half of the race, she won convincingly by more than a minute.

It was only her second serious attempt at the marathon. At the 2012 Virgin London Marathon, she ran as a pacemaker through 20 miles, setting it up for four women to break 2:21. She returned to London the next year, stayed with the leaders through halfway (1:11:49) before falling apart in the second half of the race to finish in a disappointing time of 2:35:54.

That was the last marathon she had run until Honolulu, but in the interim she became both the African and Commonwealth champion at 10,000 meters on the track, ran 30:37 for the 10K on the road (sixth fastest time in history) and scorched a 1:06:19 for the half-marathon.

Although she actually had the slowest marathon personal best of any of the elite competitors going into the women’s race on Sunday, she was considered one of the favorites – if not the favorite – to win the race because of her superb accomplishments over the shorter distances. And now that she’s won the Honolulu Marathon the first time, she will have to be considered a good bet to become the first back-to-back women’s champion if she decides to run next year since Russia’s Lyubov Morganova won in 2000 and 2001.

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