http://www.hollandsentinel.com/article/20140510/Sports/140519899
Samson Gebreyohannes, Kellyn Johnson win River Bank Run
By Lee Lamberts <lee.lambertsjim.timmermann_at_hollandsentinel.com>
Sentinel contributor
Posted May. 10, 2014 _at_ 6:23 pm
Holland, Mich.
GRAND RAPIDS -- Samson Gebreyohannes and Kellyn Johnson used different
strategies during the running of Saturday's annual River Bank Run Saturday
morning.
However, the approaches worked.
Both Gebreyohannes and Johnson won, respectively, the men's and women's 25K
run from downtown Grand Rapids through a couple of suburbs and back again.
Gebreyohannes was part of an early pack of a dozen runners that got smaller
and smaller as the race got longer and longer. He won the race with a
10-second margin over runnerup Christo Landry.
Johnson, meanwhile, decided to do away with the so-called pack mentality.
She pulled away in the first mile and won by almost two minutes over Dot
McMahan.
Gebreyohannes, who lives in Tampa, Fla., but still calls Eritrea (Africa)
home, said it was a matter of outlasting Landry, a Michigan native and Ann
Arbor resident.
"It was a very nice race," Gebreyohannes, who finished in 1 hour, 14:07
minutes, said. "It was very tough race. At two miles (to go) there was no
one there to bug me. At the end, I made a last push and got the win."
Landry was a lot more enthusiastic about his second-place finish. He
clocked in at 1:14:17.74 which put him ahead of the USA Track & Field
American record of 1:14:18, which was set by Mo Trafeh in 2013. The USATF,
however, rounds up to the nearest 1/100th, so Landry had to "settle" for a
tie.
"I was looking at the splits early (a 4:49 first mile) and I knew I was
close to breaking the American record," Landry said. "It was something that
was in the back of my mind the whole time." Normally at the end of the race
(if you're not winning) you slow down a little and wait for the crowd, but
not today.
"(Third-place finisher Shadrack Biwott, from California) was breathing down
my neck the whole time. I started cramping up in my hamstrings and my arms
and I was hoping I'd be able to survive long enough to cross the finish
line.
"It was a good race," Landry said. "Most years we start off kind of slow,
but this year, from the second mile, there were surges being thrown in left
and right. I just tried to weather the surges and go a little bit more
evenly."
The only surging Johnson did to win the women's race (in 1:25:25) was to
sprint to the lead from the outset and stay there. She did, beating
McMahan, who was well behind at 1:27:17. Colorado Springs' Mattie Suver was
a close third in 1:27:32.
"I don't know if there was much tempo," Johnson said. "My first mile was
about a 5:15 and for the next six miles or so. I was at a 5:23 or 5:24
pace. After that, I don't even know what I was. I just kind of lost track
from there.
The top Holland-area male runner in the 25K was Jesse Kippley, who finished
49th in 1:36:41. The best female finisher from the area was Becky
VanderSluis, whose 1:53:00 put her in 59th place among all women.
Received on Sun May 11 2014 - 09:23:45 EDT