Soldier wins Marine Corps Marathon by wide margin

RP Members and Connections - ARMY takes first place at the Marine Corps Marathon! Read all about it!

Army Spc. Samuel Kosgei won the 41st Marine Corps Marathon, Sunday, with a time of two hours, 23 minutes and 53 seconds. Desta Beriso Morkama came in second at 2:24:29, followed by Oscar Caron Santos at 2:25:03.

Perry Shoemaker of Vienna, Virginia was the first female to cross the finish at 2:51:48, and Marine Corps Capt. Geophery Mills, of Nokesville, Virginia, won the 10K portion of the event with a time of 38:01. Arkadiusz Skrzypinski of Poland won the hand crank event with a time of 1:17:18.

KOSGEI'S STRATEGY PAYS OFF

The 26.2-mile route for this year's race began at the Pentagon, wound through Arlington, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and ended near the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, beside Arlington National Cemetery.

After the race, Kosgei, who won the 2014 Marine Corps Marathon as well, said his preparation for the race included high-altitude training in Colorado Springs, Colorado. But he explained that he never ran more than eight to 10 miles at a time.

He was nonetheless unsurprised by his win, because he had visualized how he would compete and stuck to his plan.

"I wasn't focused on a record-breaking time," he said. "I was focused just on winning and winning big for the Army."

Kosgei said he ran at a "leisurely pace," not expending much energy, for the first 10 or so miles. For much of the race he stayed well behind the pack, but at about the 10-mile mark, he said, he "kicked into gear," but not overly so, slowly passing runners one by one, while still conserving energy.

Somewhere around the 16-mile mark, he said, runners began to pass him. At that point, he was nowhere in sight of the leading runners. But that didn't concern him, because he was sticking to his low-energy strategy, maintaining his pace and biding his time.

A few miles or so later, he said, he began to quickly pass those who had passed him earlier. The last several miles he ran elbow-to-elbow with Morkama, who hails from Ethiopia.

The final stretch of the marathon took runners up a steep hill that ran for about a quarter of a mile. Kosgei said his strategy left him with enough energy in his reserves to take the hill. When he reached the top, near the memorial, he cut through the finish tape held by two Marines, one of them Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller.

In July, Kosgei had sustained an injury to his right leg that cast some doubt on whether he would be able to compete in this race. Despite the injury, he said, his leg cramped not once. In fact, he said he was "comfortable" throughout the race. Even after completing the marathon, he said, he still had energy to spare.

Kosgei, 32, from Junction City, Kansas, is a medic in the Army and is originally from Kenya. This is the second of his wins. The first was in 2014.

Soldiers have won the Marine Corps Marathon four times over the last five years. Augustus Maiyo won the 2012 marathon, and Trevor Lafontaine, the 2015 marathon.

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