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Over 52,000 people are expected to descend upon Newcastle this Sunday to take part in the world’s biggest half marathon. Professional athletes will first complete the 13.1 mile course before being followed by a plethora of amateurs and charity racers i.e. those in creative costumes!
Despite dropping out of the Olympic marathon in August Ethiopian runner Gete Wami enters as favourite to win the women’s race but will face stiff opposition from previous winners Benita Johnson of Australia and Derartu Tulu, also of Ethiopa. Jo Pavey is amongst the favourites and will be looking to become the first British runner to win the Great North Run since Paula Radcliffe in 2003.
Sammy Wanjiru’s withdrawal has the left the men’s race wide open with 2007 World Champion Luke Kibet , multi-marathon winner Felix Limo and Abdi Abdirahman all in with a realistic chance of winning the gold medal. If Abdirahman wins he will become the first ever male American to win the Great North Run, a feat made all the more impressive considering he was originally born in Somalia.
The favourite to win the amateur race is English runner Mike Jackson, his tag as favourite having absolutely nothing to do with the fact he is my Uncle!
For both the professional and amateur runner the half marathon can be extremely useful as it provides valuable training for full marathon’s but is much easier to recover from. The half- marathon is also a great race to run as a workout as it can have a very useful effect on your LTRV (lactate-threshold running velocity). LCTR is simply how fast you can run at your lactate threshold. Half marathon's also offer a good alternative for those of us out there who just don’t want to run as far as 26.2-miles.
The popularity of half marathons continues to grow and this year more than 60 countries are scheduled to show the highlights from the Great North Run.
Good luck to everyone taking part
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 | Author: | The Sports Nut (The Sports Nut's profile, The Sports Nut's blog) |
 | Posted On: | Fri, 2008-10-03 17:02 |
 | Tags: | marathon training, running, distance running, training programs, endurance, exercise and fitness |
 | Comments: | 0 comments, go to comments |
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