http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_25837936/bolder-boulder-2014-scott-dahlberg-sarah-crouch-citizens-racethiopia'sMamitu
Daska, Eritrea's Afewerki Berhane win Bolder Boulder 2014 elite races
By Daniel Petty
The Denver Post
POSTED: 05/26/2014 08:50:00 AM MDT1 COMMENT| UPDATED: ABOUT 3 HOURS AGO
Mamitu Daska holds the Ethiopian flag after crossing the finish line as the
first female finisher in the international team race at the 36th Annual
BolderBOULDER 10K road race on Memorial Day, May 26, 2014. (Photo By
Lindsay Pierce/The Denver Post)
BOULDER -- Ethiopia's Mamitu Daska won the women's elite Bolder Boulder,
repeating from her 2012 win, and Eritrea's Afewerki Berhane won the men's
elite race under sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s.
Portland's Shalane Flanagan finished second in the women's race.
Lafayette's Sean Quigley was the top American for the men.
Quigley was the biggest surprise of the day, seeded on the third American
team -- USA White. He topped a formidable USA Red team of Olympic marathoner
Ryan Hall and professionals Luke Puskedra and Bobby Curtis.
His coach, Lee Troop, was ecstatic afterward, wrapping his arms around his
runner and saying, "I'm so proud of you."
Scott Dahlberg, 29, of Fort Collins, wins the citizens race at the 2014
BolderBoulder 10K at Folsom Field on May 26, 2014, in Boulder, Colorado.
Dahlberg finished in 30 minutes, 50 seconds. (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post)
In the women's field, Daska separated herself from the pack barely a mile
into the race, swinging widely to her left on a long straightaway as the
rest of the women's pack moved to the right -- inside of the road -- as if
she were trying to sneak by undetected.
She separated herself and never looked back. A four-second gap turned into
eight seconds, then 10 seconds, then 18 seconds and was near 22 seconds by
the time she raced into Folsom Field, with some 50,000 people cheering her
arrival.
The roar came once more for Flanagan, the 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in
the 10,000 meters who was the top American in Boston in April. It was
Flanagan's first Bolder Boulder.
Earlier, Colorado State University assistant cross country coach Scott
Dahlberg won the 2014 Bolder Boulder citizens race after a gamble in the
second mile to break away from the field.
Dahlberg, 29, who graduated from Western State Colorado University in
Gunnison, finished in 30 minutes, 50 seconds, fending off a late attack
from second-place finisher Andy Wacker, a former runner for the University
of Colorado. Wacker finished in second in 30:56.71.
Runners in the BolderBoulder citizens race make their way up Folsom St. in
Boulder heading toward the finish line. (Kathryn Osler, The Denver Post )
"I've run it a handful of times," Dahlberg said of the Bolder Boulder, "but
this is by far the best I've felt in it. I decided to take a chance early
on and break away. Wacker's a tremendous runner. I could have been where he
was, and could have been where I ended up."
Sarah Crouch, 24, a professional long distance runner for Reebok-sponsored
Zap Fitness, was the first women's finisher, in 35:11.72.
"After the first mile, I settled into a rhythm and stopped looking at my
watch," said Crouch, who lives and trains with her husband, also a runner
for Zap, in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. "A 10K is long enough that you'll have
good and bad patches. I definitely had a rough patch around the 5K point.
When you get to a 5K point, you either think, 'I'm feeling great' or 'Wow,
I'm only halfway done.'"
Racing at altitude tends to punish a runner's lungs more than his or her
legs -- which is exactly what Crouch found.
"The difficulty of the altitude and the intimidation -- it was easily
balanced of the people of Boulder and having 50,000 runners behind me."
Daniel Petty: 303-954-1081, dpetty_at_denverpost.com, or on Twitter
_at_danielpetty
Received on Mon May 26 2014 - 16:48:58 EDT