Mo Farah Tackles the Marathon - London Marathon Preview

This Sunday Mo Farah is making his marathon debut at the London Marathon.

Mo Farah is the 2012 Olympic 10,000 and 5,000 meter champion.  He also doubled in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.  To top all of that off, last year he ran the 1500 meter in 3:28:81 to break Steve Cram's 28 year old British record.  So, he's got wheels!

He's run several half marathons, including the NYC half three weeks ago where he came in second at 61:08.  And that's after he got tripped up in the middle of the race.  He also collapsed at the finish line!  His best half marathon time came last year at the Bupa Great North Run with a time of 60:10.

The London Marathon is normally a pretty fast marathon and this year, the field is stacked.  The current marathon world record holder, Wilson Kipsang, is running.  Last year's winner, Tsegaye Kebede, is also running.  The London course record holder, Emmanuel Mutai, will be there.  And, finally, Geoffrey Mutai, ran 2:03:02 in Boston in 2011.  Which is faster than the current world record, but Boston is not a world record eligible course.

With all the talent in the field, I don't think Mo will win, but I am very interested to see what his time is.  I'm going to guess he'll run 2:06:XX and break Steve Jones 29 year old British marathon record.  That seems to be his main priority, as he said "My aim is to go after the British record and see what comes with it, and to respect the distance."  If he does run somewhere in the 2:06 range, he may have an opportunity to win it.  Last year's winner, Kebede, ran 2:06:04 to win it.

He's spent some time training in Kenya, and here's what a week of training for Mo looks like:

His recovery pace is my race pace!

Mo's debut is interesting as well, because just last week, Kenenisa Bekele made his marathon debut in Paris and set the course record in 2:05:03.  Paris is not known for producing fast times, but Bekele's debut was one of the best ever.  Mo and Kenenisa are both 31, Kenenisa has been plagued by injuries the last couple of years, but it would be neat to see these two duel in the marathon.

It's also being reported that Mo will not be running with the leaders for the first half of the race, he will run with a pace group that is being paced to a 62:15 half marathon.  While the lead pack will be paced by Haile Gebrselassie to a 61:45 half.  I think this is a smart move for Mo, and hopefully, he'll have the energy to start picking off guys who fall off the lead pack.

Anyways, it should be exciting!  As exciting as a 2 hour foot race can be, anyways.  I would actually like to watch it, but the start time is for the men is 10:00 am local, which is 5:00 am EST.  By the time I wake up, it will be all over.  I'll try to catch the replay on letsrun.com.