NEW YORK — Geoffrey Mutai could train with some of the fastest marathoners in history.
Instead, he often chooses to run alone. That’s how the Kenyan star ensures he can hold steady, speedy splits without following someone else.
He used the skill to easily win the last two New York City Marathons. The race is a championship-style event, which means there is no pacemaker, a runner tasked with leading the pack to a certain time over the first half.
Pacemakers are vital to breaking world records. Wilson Kipsang set one at the Berlin Marathon just over a year ago on the flat course that’s perfect for lowering those marks, unlike the hilly route in New York.
This fall, though, Kipsang bypassed Berlin to make his NYC Marathon debut.
“It’s really cool because part of my dreams has been to run all the major races, to get the challenge and see what I can really do,” he said.
Kipsang did not meet the challenge of a championship-style event at the 2012 Olympics, when he built an early lead only to be passed and settle for a bronze medal.
With a pacemaker, Mutai explains, runners can “stay back and relax.” But on a championship-style course, “everyone is looking at you, and you look at each other.” All that jockeying for position is draining.
“You must use your energy from start to end and be prepared mentally,” said Mutai, Kipsang’s friend and occasional training partner.
Mutai is not only a skilled racer but blazing fast, too. In winning the 2011 Boston Marathon, another championship-style event, he ran the quickest 26.2 miles in history in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 2 seconds. That didn’t count as a world record because the course is considered too straight and downhill: For all the notoriety of Heartbreak Hill, the race has a net drop in elevation, and Mutai enjoyed a tailwind that day.
Kipsang’s world record was 2:03:23. Both of their marks fell five weeks ago, when another training partner, Dennis Kimetto, won Berlin in 2:02:57.
The men’s field brims with other contenders with success in championship-style races. Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa is the 2013 Boston Marathon champ. Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich won the 2012 Olympic gold medal and 2013 world title.
About 50,000 runners are expected to start the 44th edition of the NYC Marathon.
On the women’s side, two of the favorites have sour memories of race tactics gone awry in New York. Kenya’s Mary Keitany sped out to a big lead in 2011 only to be caught by Ethiopians Firehiwot Dado and Buzunesh Deba. In the next NYC Marathon, Deba was the one surging ahead, and she too was overtaken, settling for her second straight runner-up finish. The Bronx resident is seeking to finally top the podium Sunday and become the first New Yorker in 40 years to win the race.
Priscah Jeptoo, who chased down Deba, won’t defend her title because of a leg injury. Dado is back this year, as is 2010 winner Edna Kiplagat of Kenya, the two-time defending world champion.
Keflezighi knows that if Mutai and Kipsang challenge the course record Sunday, he doesn’t have a shot. And that’s OK.
“If they’re going to go from the get-go, you know what? I have no business going with that,” he said. “When I did what I did in Boston, I wasn’t doing something crazy. I just did what was common sense.”