Khalid Khannouchi and Paula Radcliffe have become quite the item in the marathon.
They have their act together so completely, they are becoming interchangeable. One masters the race, the other masters the marathon universe.
One breaks the world record, the other almost breaks the world record.
They did it five months ago in London, and they did it again Sunday in the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon.
This 30-year-old man who emigrated to the United States from Morocco and this 28-year-old woman from the English midlands will forever be wedded in the sport’s history.
So what if their actual marriages are not to each other? They still were the honored guests at the Chicago marathon’s silver anniversary party.
With a winning time of 2 hours 17 minutes 18 seconds, Radcliffe obliterated the world record of 2:18:47 set here last year by Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, Sunday’s runner-up by more than two minutes.
Khannouchi gave a commanding performance to win his fourth Chicago title with the fourth-fastest time ever, 2:05:56. If not for 15 m.p.h. headwinds in the final 2 1/2 miles, Khannouchi likely would have broken the world record of 2:05:38 he set April 14 in London. In that same race Radcliffe won her marathon debut with a time that missed the world record by just nine seconds.
“The world record is what I knew I was capable of doing and what I was working for since London,” Radcliffe said.
Radcliffe broke not only the record but the bank. She made $100,000 for finishing first, and the record was worth a $150,000 bonus and a car valued at $35,000. With an appearance fee of some $250,000 and a record bonus from her shoe company, she will pocket more than $600,000 for spending the morning on a jaunt with 31,583 others through the streets of Chicago.
Chicago again broke the hearts of rival marathon promoters. By almost any standard, this was the fastest in history.
“To think I was four minutes back and I ran well … it’s phenomenal what these guys are doing,” said Adam Culpepper of Boulder, Colo., who finished sixth in 2:09:41, matching Alberto Salazar’s 22-year-old record for the fastest marathon debut by a U.S. man.
The third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishers in the men’s race ran faster than anyone who ever finished in those places at a marathon. Ditto for the first, second, third and fourth finishers in the women’s race.
As she did in London, Radcliffe started fast and finished faster, running the race’s second half 44 seconds faster than the first. She averaged 5:14.1 per mile, slowing down noticeably only when stomach problems nearly forced her to make a pit stop in the 24th mile.
Slowly, inexorably, Radcliffe pulled away from Ndereba midway through a race in which they shared the lead for 12 miles. Ndereba made one counterattack, cutting the margin from five to two seconds in the 15th mile, but that was her last stand in defense of her two straight Chicago titles.
Ndereba’s time, 2:19:26, was the fourth fastest in history. This was the first marathon in which two women had broken 2:20.
Third finisher Yoko Shibui of Japan lowered her personal best by nearly two minutes to 2:21:22. Fourth finisher Svetlana Zakharova lowered her Russian national record to 2:21:31.
“Paula was able to keep her pace better than I was,” Ndereba said. “I was double sure I could break my world record and could run 2:17-something. I’m not yet totally exhausted, so I know I can do it.”
The 98-pound Ndereba said she was reduced to “some kind of jogging”‘ while fighting the wind in the final miles.
“I was thinking, `Oh, my goodness, I’m going to be blown away,”‘ Ndereba said.
She was, figuratively if not literally, by Radcliffe, who has shaken off a career of near-misses with wins this year in major meets on the track, in cross country and in two of the world’s top marathons.
“This has rounded off a brilliant year for me,” Radcliffe said. “To prove I can run on all three surfaces is important. I remember being told I should give up cross country and the roads and put all my energy on the track.”
For Khannouchi, there is no question of such multitasking. He is a man for the marathon, in which he has run three of history’s four fastest times and is the first man in 48 years to break his own world record. He can dominate a race while leading or trailing, as he did again Sunday.
“He is in a league of his own, ideally suited for the distance,” Culpepper said.
While many other elite men reacted to the surges of the rabbits’ uneven pacing, Khannouchi stayed in the pack. He did not respond immediately to the move made by Takaoka Toshinari in the 19th mile, waiting until the Japanese had opened a 21-second gap 4 miles later.
“Khalid knows where to push, when there is confusion among the other runners,” said Paul Tergat of Kenya, fourth in 2:06:18.
When he picked up the pace in the 24th mile, Khannouchi was among four runners still within reach of Toshinari, but none of the others took the challenge.
“I have learned you can control the race from behind, by watching the way the other runners are breathing or running,” Khannouchi said.
He flew past Toshinari just before the 25-mile mark, leaving the Japanese runner in a furious battle for second place with Tergat and another Kenyan, Daniel Njenga. The official times showed Njenga and Toshinari with the same time, 2:06:16, but Njenga had edged ahead at the tape before collapsing in an exhausted blackout. He received medical treatment.
Khannouchi wound up on the ground as well, rolling over onto his back. He was overcome by the emotion of having justified the cheers of a city where everybody knows his name. It hardly mattered that the wind likely cost him another world record. He still added a $75,000 time bonus to his first prize of $100,000.
“For me, this is a magical place,” Khannouchi said.
He set a race record here in 1997, a world record here in 1999 and a U.S. record in his first race as a citizen in 2000. For Khannouchi, the marathon and Chicago is a marriage made in heaven.
