No seperate start for men and women. When asked about her relatively slow start at the post-race press conference, Ndereba said she simply missed the first two mile markers and thought she was running faster than she was.
She did see mile 3 (17:11) which was "only" about 2:30 pace so she quickly accelerated. Ndereba's "world record" 2nd half split of 1:08:32 was more than a minute faster than Takahashi's 1:09:39 in a 2;22:19 Nagoya Marathon. Wang Junxia supposedly ran something like 1:09:09 for the 2nd half of her 2:24:07 at the '93 Chinese national championships, which based on the same way she ran her 3000 and 10,000 meters races later that year, may have been pretty close to accurate. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Hersh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 5:45 PM To: Post, Marty Subject: t-and-f: a historical breakthrough for Ndereba Message text written by "Post, Marty" >Astonishing that her 3rd 5 miles was an even 2 minutes faster than her first. A better pace in the start and she coulda been sub-2:18. < Does Chicago have a separate start and initial course for women? If not, perhaps her slow start was the result of traffic at and after the start.
