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Waweru, too, is from Kenya, and he wanted to see if their faces were familiar ones.
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Richard Kandie, 631, of Coon Rapids, MN, edged out David Tuwie alson of Coon Rapids to win the La Crosse Chileda Classic 10K race.
Erik Daily |
He quickly found out they were from Eldoret, which is where he used to live.
But it took a road race in La Crosse to bring them together for the first time.
“I didn’t know them,” Waweru said, “but it was fun talking to them today.”
Waweru and the Duma Runners Club had a lot of good things to talk about. Their home country put on quite a show Saturday morning.
Waweru didn’t just successfully defend the 5K championship he won here last year, he got to share in the pride of Kenya taking the top three spots in the men’s 10K race.
Richard Kandie, David Tuwei and John Rotich all run for Duma, which is based in Coon Rapids, Minn.
The 23-year-old Kandie (29 minutes, 28.9 seconds) was the overall winner and was followed across the finish line, in order, by Tuwei (29:31) and Rotich (32:58).
“We are all training together and racing within the United States,” said Kandie, who has run two marathons, three half-marathons and one 20K since March 2.
The victory was Kandie’s third in a row and follows a 5K win in Winona, Minn.,
on June 21 and a 10K win in Moorhead, Minn., on Friday.
Yes, Kandie has won 10K races on consecutive days. He even ran an extra 1.2K Friday when the race official made a wrong turn on the course.
Tuwei and Rotich also finished among the top four on Friday.
The Duma Club is a training facility for Kenyan runners attempting to become the best in the world. Members compete in races all over the country in the spring and summer months.
Waweru, who also won last year’s Chileda 5K, is familiar with the group. He also wishes he could run as much as the Duma runner do.
Waweru, 30, just started training again three weeks ago after being limited by a hamstring injury for 18 months. He didn’t start runs of five or six miles until last week.
Waweru’s workouts to that point hinged on work he does on a farm in Sun Prairie, Wis.
That’s what he used to do in Kenya, but he said the job is much easier here.
“They use machines here,” Waweru said. “Yeah. That makes it easier.”
But he wasn’t looking for an easy run on Saturday. Waweru wanted to be pushed, but he wasn’t. He won in 14:51.4, a margin of 1 minute, 43 seconds over La Crosse’s Jason Vaughn, who finished in 16:34.5.
La Crosse’s Bobby Glotfelty (16:45.8) placed third.
“After one mile, I just said to myself that I wanted to keep a 4:56 pace mile,” Waweru said. “That worked for me.”
Waweru nearly had plenty of competition on his hands. Kandie said he almost ran the 5K and made his decision to switch very late.
I just wanted to be pushed,” Wawera said. “That would have been good for me.”
Todd Sommerfeldt can be reached at (608) 791-8208 or todd.sommerfeldt@lee.net
