Saturday, January 13, 2007

Notes

Annie Bersagel, who made the trip to Houston from Norway, is the top seed in the US Women's Half Marathon Championships.

"I haven't raced in a while," Bersagel said. "I've done a lot more training this fall, so we'll see how it goes this weekend. It's a wonderful field assembled for this weekend. It'll be a lot of fun."
Bersagel has plans to run her first marathon this April in Boston.
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Results from 2006 US Women's Half Marathon championships.

 1 Annie Bersagel          1:14:36
2 Jenny Crain 1:14:45
3 Zoila Gomez 1:15:30
4 Ann Alyanak 1:15:50
5 Dana Coons 1:16:58
6 Alvina Begay 1:17:04
7 Turena Johnson-Lane 1:17:22
8 Paige Higgins 1:19:02
9 Tere Stouffer 1:19:08
10 Christine Lundy 1:19:14
11 Melissa Todd 1:19:39
12 Michelle La Fleur 1:19:44
13 Suzanne Weeder Einspahr 1:20:21
14 Heather Hunt 1:21:42
15 Camille Herron 1:21:52
16 Sheena Dauer 1:21:52
Bolded names are runners competing here Sunday, according to elites list released on Wednesday, Jan. 10.
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Meb vs. Sell? --- It may or may not play out like that, given the heavy hitters in the half marathon field. Keflezighi and Sell have ran in the same race once before, the 20K championships in New Haven in 2003. Keflezighi won the race, with Sell second.
"It wasn't competitive between us, at least not on my part," said Sell, who finished 21 seconds behind Keflezighi.

With this only being Keflezighi's third attempt at a half marathon, it'll be the first time the two have met at this distance.

"Brian has really made a name for himself," Keflezighi said. "He's really dedicated and he showed that by being here today."

Sell arrived at the press conference less than an hour after his plane landed.
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Or is it Meb vs. Ryan Hall? --- One member of the press conference asked Meb if he'd be able to stay with Ryan Hall on Sunday. Hall set a new US 20K record at the World Championships in Hungary in Oct. 2006. His time of of 57:54 is equivalent to a low 61 in the half.
"Ryan's got the 20K record and he had a great year," Keflezighi said. "This field is pretty loaded."

Abdi Abdirahman had the previous 20K record of 58:42, set in 2005. Before that, Keflezighi had held the 20K record with a 58:57 in 2003.

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