 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
 |
Press Release Getting Off Track, Cooke Shows Taste for Road Racing Ben Cooke's forte is track, but he looked equally at home on the road as he won yesterday's Kentlands/Lakelands 5K in Gaithersburg in a race-record 14 minutes 52 seconds. The Silver Spring runner, back from a six-week layoff following his win in July's Rockville Twilighter 8K, showed no sign of languishing as he out-kicked training partner Kyle Smits, 23, of Washington (15:03). The course record of 15:26 easily fell to Cooke, Smits and third-place Michael Wardian of Arlington, who led the first half of the race before fading to a 15:14 finish. "I've been faster than that on the track, but this is a twisty, turny course and I didn't know exactly which way to go," said Cooke, 25. "Kyle said he might run a 4:30 or 4:15 for the last mile, and he sounded like he thought he was the only one who could do it -- but I knew I could, too." Washington's Atalelech Ketema led the entire field for the first 800 meters and coasted to a race-record 16:51 victory in the women's race over 24-year-old Alexandria resident Heather Hanscom (17:13). Ketema, 19, was also coming off a win in the Rockville Twilighter, where she beat former Kentlands record holder Naoko Ishibe by nearly a minute. The top four women all finished faster than the course record of 17:24. Although Bill Rodgers finished in a "disappointing" 18:09, the Kentlands race found a fan in the four-time winner of the Boston and New York marathons in the late 1970s and a former world record holder in the 25K. |
 |
||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|
 |
 |
|
"It's very much a cross-country type of course, and I love that sort of race -- very windy, lots of changes," said Rodgers, 54, a 1976 Olympian and former American marathon record holder who also won four Cherry Blossom 10-Mile races. "I thought I'd certainly crack 17:00 . . . but cross-country times aren't going to be that fast, and it's not about times." The 1,115 entrants were the most in the race's nine years. By Kynan W. Kelly |
 |