Kara Goucher Finishes 5th At Boston Marathon

Duluth native Kara Goucher had a very strong run today in The Boston Marathon, after just recently giving birth to her first child.

Well done!

Kenya's Geoffrey Mutai won the Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 2 seconds — the fastest anyone has ever run the 26.2 mile distance.

The previous best of 2:03:59 was by Haile Gebrselassie in Berlin 2008. Because Monday's race had a strong tailwind on a downhill course, Mutai's run is not recognized by track's international governing body as a record.

But Mutai was almost three minutes better than the course record set just last year by Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot.

Caroline Kilel won the women's race to complete the Kenyan sweep, outsprinting American Desiree Davila to win by two seconds, in 2:22:36. Davila led as late as the final stretch on Boylston Street and ran the fastest time ever for a U.S. woman, five seconds faster than Joan Benoit finished to win in 1983.

No American — man or woman — has won Boston since Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach in 1985. Ryan Hall ran the fastest marathon ever for an American, finishing fourth in 2:04:58, and former Duluth resident Kara Goucher, of Portland, Ore., ran a personal-best 2:24:52 — seven months after giving birth to her first child — to add a fifth-place finish to her third in 2009.

via Goucher finishes 5th at Boston Marathon | Duluth News Tribune | Duluth, Minnesota.