PUBLISHED 04/16/2007
Ann Alyanak and Kristin Price had the two best races in the Boston Marathon/USA Women's Marathon Championships. Alyanak finished 9th in the Boston race and 2nd in the USA race, and Price was 10/3. Deena Kastor won the USA Championships with her 2:35:09.
In so doing, Alyanak lowered her PR from 2:48:04 to 2:38:55. Price lowered her PR from 2:44:09 to 2:38:57. The two ran together basically all the way.
Alyanak picked up $5,700 from the Boston Marathon and $15,000 from the USA Champs. Price picked up $4,200 and $10,000. Both also moved up the pecking order of women hoping to make it to the Beijing Olympic Marathon. Those three women will select themselves next April in Boston.
Alyanak, 28, and the head women's cross-country coach at the University of Dayton, has a 10,000 PR of 33:35.64. She had run two previous marathons, the most recent being the 2005 Twin Cities race, where she finished 18th in 2:48:04. "That race didn't go very well," she said today, "and I knew I was a lot fitter for Boston."
Price, 25, was a 12-time All American in cross-country and track at North Carolina State. In recent years she has focused more on triathlons than pure running, and in 2006 she won the Duke Half-Ironman Triathlon. She decided to run last fall's Columbus Marathon at the last moment, and won the race in 2:44:09. She has run 32:50.01 for 10,000 on the track. "I didn't train specifically for my first two marathons," she said. "I figured if I did marathon training for Boston, I'd run better than I had in the past."
