Kenyan earns entry to elite club of repeat winners

DULUTH -- It was the gamble Saturday that would either turn Wesly Ngetich into a Grandma's Marathon legend or into an also-ran for the second consecutive year.

With the bright sun beating down on his head and the burden of last year's Grandma's collapse weighted on his shoulders, Ngetich broke away from a pack of fellow Kenyans at the 17-mile mark and won his second Grandma's Marathon in three years.

Only three other men have won this 31-year-old spectacle twice: course record-holder Dick Beardsley, then of Rush City, Minn., in 1981 and 1982; Garry Bjorklund, of Minneapolis, in 1977 and 1980; and Michigan's Doug Kurtis in 1989 and 1993.

Ngetich's time of 2 hours, 15 minutes and 55 seconds in the staggering humidity and a near-70-degree start hardly evoked Beardsley's seemingly invincible 1981 mark of 2:09:37. Yet Ngetich's status as the first non-American male to win Grandma's twice only hinted at his elite status and thoughts of what might have been.

Last year, he braved through the brutally thick humidity and heat to a lead he held through 21 miles. Then he hit Lemon Drop Hill, a psychologically menacing speed bump, and faltered badly, finishing sixth overall. It was the 29-year-old's seventh Grandma's, but never before had the 5-5, 130-pound Ngetich succumbed to the ever-changing elements of the North Shore like this.

This year would be different, he vowed. This year, he said in Swahili through an interpreter, he would "hang back."

By the midway point of the 26.2-mile course from Two Harbors to Canal Park in Duluth, Ngetich wanted to make a move.

Fellow Kenyan Joseph Kahugu, who finished second, had been by his side since early in the race. But by the 16th mile, Australian Andrew Letherby had fallen out of contention. So had Christopher Raabe, a former Sauk Rapids High School cross-country runner who now lives in Washington. For a while, Raabe represented the only possibility of an American hope in a race that has been won by foreign men in each of the past 12 years.

All who were left to run alongside Ngetich were fellow countrymen Kahugu, Thomas Omwega, James Karanja and Jynocel Basweti.

But the Kenyans began to question matters.

"We were arguing about when to take the lead, when to break away," Ngetich said.

It would have been nice to have had somebody pushing them, to quicken the pace, he said.

"Tough day," said Letherby, who finished third but failed in his bid to qualify for the Australian Olympic team. "It felt like the breeze was in your face."

Ngetich decided that he would be the one to make his move. But as he pulled away, he constantly looked over his shoulder. The distance between him and Kahugu widened -- to 20 yards, then to 40 yards -- to the point where Ngetich was nearly two minutes ahead and Kahugu was out of sight.

But Ngetich kept looking.

"Last year, I didn't look over my shoulder and I got caught," said Ngetich, a grain farmer and the father of three young children.

Last year, he was caught by winner Sergei Lukin. This year, there were no footsteps.

Ngetich was oblivious to the beauty of Lake Superior, to spectator Al Franken (doing another type of running), to the spectators in costumes and to the Salvation Army-type bands.

"A lot of stuff happens in a marathon," Letherby said. "People die in the last mile."

Not Ngetich. Not Saturday.

"I thought I would get to him," said Kahugu, who finished in 2:17:29. "It was too hot for me."

It was Ngetich who kept his cool. He was asked to reflect on last year and how he might have become Grandma's first men's three-time winner Saturday.

But he preferred to talk about running in next year's Boston Marathon for the first time, and a return to Grandma's next year and a chance at Minnesota immortality.

"If I'm invited," he said.

Paul Levy • plevy@startribune.com