Running: California's Akor win's Vancouver Women's marathon

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 02:45 PM

The splendour of running on Canada's West Coast....

VANCOUVER - Mary Akor hardly seemed like the quitting type. But after a discouraging 19th place at the U.S. women's Olympic marathon trials in Boston two weeks ago, the Nigerian-born, Hawthorne, Calif., resident said it crossed her mind.

"I said let me see how I'm going to do in Vancouver . . . I came to this race just to boost my morale," Akor said.

Consider it boosted after the 31-year-old captured her second Vancouver title on Sunday in two hours, 37 minutes, 54 seconds. That was nearly seven minutes faster than her 2004 win and her '06 and '07 efforts when she was second in 2:45.33 and 2:44.22, respectively.

Akor, who easily led the 145-woman field at Boston with 11 qualifying marathons over the previous two years, ran 2:39.34 in that race, nearly 10 minutes behind winner Deena Kastor.

"Oh, my God, time of the month," said Akor in delicately explaining her sub-par effort. "I was really, really off."

Claudia Camargo of Argentina, who set a women's course record of 2:35.46 in winning last year's Vancouver Marathon, was second Sunday in 2:54.53. She was clearly struggling over the last few kilometres.

"I have some minor shin splints and for the last three weeks I didn't train well," Camargo said through an interpreter. "But I like the atmosphere here and the race director, so I came here for that."

Ellie Greenwood of Vancouver was top Canadian in third in 2:55.28.