Pick your winner from Kenyan runners

If you want to win something, run 100 metres. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.
1028 runners will attempt to practice legendary Emile Zatopek’s memorable words at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on Sunday. The event, in only its second year, is now firmly on the international map.
Race director Hugh Jones recently wrote in the TOI that this year’s event would surely see improved timings.His deduction is based on the premise that the route has been altered and now the runners have to negotiate the only incline on the route — the flyover at Kemps Corner — only twice. Last year, winner Henrik Ramaala of South Africa and the others had negotiate it four times due to the Nariman Point-Worli loop. Moreover, a wintry January 16 is much more encouraging than the breaking-into-summer February 15.
This year, the Marathon will run from opposite CST right to the end of the Bandra Reclamation flyover before turning back. While this should certainly better Ramaala’s timing of 2 hours 15. 47 seconds, there is no pointer to the winner that assures the top prize of $30,000.
There are 124 elite male athletes and 834 others who are also part of the ‘Greatest Race On Earth’, which is a combination of all the four races sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank.
Kenya’s Joseph Kahugu ranks as one of the leading contenders simply because he has the best personal timing amongst all runners. However, the 2:07.59 was set in 1998 at Chicago when he finished second. And at 32, Kahugu is not getting any younger.
John Mutai is yet another lean-looking Kenyan in the fray. He was here last year too and climbed from 11th to finish fifth. The experience might just stand him in good stead. "He is capable of beating me," said Kahugu. There are three more Kenyans with sub 2:10s as personal bests and a few hovering on the brink. The challengers are from other African nations like Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa too.
Middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe once said: "I always felt that long, slow distances produce long, slow runners." Participants of the Mumbai Marathon are waiting to prove him wrong. A world record? Well, what do we say... Nothing would please the organisers more.
The record stands in the name of Paul Tergat, who failed to turn up here for the ‘Dream Run’ last year. He had then clocked 2:04.55 in Berlin two years ago. A lot will depend on the pace-setters that have been brought here by the organisers. A 7.30 am start will aide a pacy start.
Will Mutai & Co take up the challenge?