This Sunday, April 1, 2012, the Carlsbad 5000 will take to the streets of Carlsbadistan for the 27th time. And this years field promises to be the best yet. Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel, the defending champion and last year’s 5,000-meter bronze medalist will be leading the field. But there’s more:
Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, the 2011 Carlsbad runner-up who was ranked No. 1 in the world over 5,000 meters in 2010 and has silver and bronze medals in the 5,000 from the past two Olympic Games; and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele, a former world champion over 3,000 meters indoors and with a best of 12:54.45 over 5,000 meters.
The Carlsbad 5000 kicks off tomorrow morning (April 2, 2011) with the Junior Carlsbad at 7:50 (not pictured above, obviously) and the Diaper Dash at 10:30 AM.
For the rest of the details including all start times, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
The Carlsbad 5000 already? It’s true. On Sunday, April 3, 2011 thousands of runners will join former winner Aheza Kiros, of Ethiopia and US Olympians Christin Wurth-Thomas and Jen Rhines in a ground-pounding trot through Carlsbadistan in what is considered the world’s fastest 5K run.
“I want to get back there (World Championships) and medal this time,” Wurth-Thomas, the former Arkansas standout said. “I’m excited to run a good race at Carlsbad. My training has been going very well, so why not? I’m coming off an 11-second PR indoors. I’m pretty fit and ready to go, so the sky’s the limit. I’m looking for competition. This will be my first outdoor race (of the season).”
It was windy on the Carlsbad 5000 course today as Ethiopia’s Ali Abdosh (2) and defending champ Bekana Dab (1) made Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge do all the work on the way down to the Tamarck Turn. They were probably hoping that it would tire him out. It didn’t.
Kipchoge was able to move out in front on the way back into town and by the time he made it to the turn onto Carlsbad Village Drive Kipchoge had the race well in hand. It wasn’t enough for a world road record, (Sammy Kipketer’s 13:00), but it was enough for the win and the confidence to know that the record is within reach.
At 7:05 AM, under overcast skies, the 25th Annual Carlsbad 5000 kicked off its 2010 run with the Masters Men 40 and over. It was the perfect temperature for running in Carlsbadistan. A cool and crisp 55 degrees with a hint on blue skies.
On Sunday, April 11, 2010 the Village of Carlsbadistan will be filled with the stomp and clomp of runners as The Carlsbad 5000 “world’s fastest 5k” returns. And while we don’t enjoy all the visitors as much as we should, having Coast Highway closed for most of a day is a wonderful thing.
The Carlsbad 5000 bills itself as the “World Fastest 5K” but San Diego Union-Tribune writer Don Norcross has discovered that on the men’s side at least there hasn’t been a record broken in Carlsbadistan since 2000 when Sammy Kipketer’s ran the race in 13 minutes. Norcross asks the question, “Why the lull?”
“Because the world record was such an incredible performance that it was unfricking real,” said Tracy Sundlun, vice president of the Competitor Group, which owns the race. . . .By comparison, the women have continued taking an eraser to the record book. From 2002 through 2006, women broke the world record four times and tied it once. . . Kipketer’s 2000 mark was stunning, shattering the existing world mark by 12 seconds. Eighteen years old at the time, Kipketer took the first mile out in a shocking 3 minutes, 59 seconds. . . . As Kipketer steadily pulled away from the field, the late Mike Long, who recruited the elite athletes, made a prescient remark aboard the press truck. . . “He’s going too fast,” Long said. “How will we ever break this new record?”
Apparently, getting the fastest runners to race here is just too expensive. What happened to the joy of running?
The race takes place Sunday April 5, 2009 in The Village of Carlsbadistan. And who knows, maybe Maregu Zewdie can pull something out this year.
At about 12:30 PM the Pro Men took to the streets of Carlsbad for the Carlsbad 5000 main event. The breezy, sunny day awaited them. After waiting out there for 25 minutes, it was shocking to see how fast they sprinted by. Then again, they are some of the fastest humans in the world. So that puts it in perspective.
(The UK’s Mo Farah (4) leading the Pro Elite men out of the Tamarack turn. Alan Webb slipping the stream opver Haron Lagat’s (9) right shoulder.)
The winner? Maregu Terefe Zewdie of Ethiopia finished the 2008 Carlsbad 5000 in 13:34, followed by the UK’s Mo Farah, and Haron Lagat of Kenya. Kenyan’s swept the women’s podium: Vivian Cheruiyot with a time of 15:14, followed by Rose Kosgei, and Genoveva Kigen.
The big question: what happened to American miler Alan Webb? Rumors have him pulling out at the two mile mark. We know he was in 8th place going into the turn at Tamarack, and was at the back of the lead pack at Cherry St. But somewhere between Cherry and the finish line Alan Webb pulled out of the race and was not listed as a finisher.
According to the running blog Coach Joe English, Webb dropped out a half mile from the finish, not because he was injured, but because he was “hurting.”
”I was hurting,” Webb said. “I was putting in surges just to stay up where I was. As soon as we turned around that second time I was done. It’s the only time I’ve dropped out of a race for no other reason than I was hurting.”
“I’m always trying to push deeper and go harder,” Webb said. “It’s in there, I just need to get it out of me. Hopefully this won’t be my last time in Carlsbad. I look forward to coming back and doing better.”
If you have a Carlsbad news story, press release, event, rumor, or scandal that we'd be interested in (and there are a lot of them), please click the link to send them to The Editors.
Or just search the site to see if we've mentioned it before, right here.
RSS Feed-Posts