2012 Boston Marathon Thoughts

This year's Boston marathon had it's surprises like usual.  Last year's champ, Geoffrey Mutai dropped out and a former NCAA runner from Louisville, Wesley Korir, won.  Korir is a tough runner and it wasn't surprising to see him come out on top in these less than ideal conditions.  Another tough runner appears to be Jason Hartmann of the USA.  Hartmann finished 4th, the same position as Ryan Hall, in a similarly talented field.  Hartmann did finish about 10 minutes slower, however.  It is nice to see a runner who isn't extraordinarily skinny out there running fast.  As a runner with a bigger bone structure I can relate to that!  Hartmann is said to weigh 160 pounds.  I am not sure how much the weather truly affected the race.  Obviously it did but was that as important of a factor as the attitudes of the competitors.  I mean, that joker-tri athlete Glen Randall led for awhile.  I don't think Ryan Hall would have allowed such a thing and if Hall went, so would have Gebre and Geoffrey.  The weather had more of a mental impact then a physical one in my opinion.  I would like to give a shout out to the top 2 South Dakota finishers.  First was last year's Brookings half marathon champion, Thomas Madut.  Madut formerly ran for Sioux Falls Lincoln and Dakota Wesleyan University.  Thomas ran 2:35.  Second was Corey Selland, a current graduate student at SDSU and employee at Bartling's shoes.  Great job guys!