BOULDER — Just a few hundred yards from Folsom Field at Monday’s Bolder Boulder 10K, Kenya’s Isaac Mukundi and Ethiopia’s Terefe Debela were running shoulder to shoulder, stride for stride.
It appeared a sprint finish was all but certain. But on the final hill headed into the stadium, Mukundi powered away from Debela and never looked back, entering the stadium to the roar familiar to so many Bolder Boulder elite finishers.
“I felt good. It was a bit tough,” Mukundi told The Denver Post after finishing in 29 minutes, 12.14 seconds. “We ran together, but I had to run my pace. The guys were moving well, not like last year. Last year was a bit tough.”
A Memorial Day that was the warmest since 2007 — 76 degrees with 26 percent humidity — didn’t deter the East Africans from taking out a blistering pace. Kenya’s MacDonald Ondara sizzled through the first mile just under 4:30, putting a 15-yard lead on the rest of the field.
They slowly reeled him in. Eventually, a pack of seven — three from Kenya, two from Eritrea and two from Ethiopia — settled. The pack winnowed to five by the 3-mile mark. Mukundi and Debela dropped Ondara by the fourth mile and ran together to the stadium. Mukundi is now the 10th Kenyan to win the Bolder Boulder.
The Americans ran exceptionally well, placing four in the top 10 for the first time in 19 years and ending runner-up in the team competition for the second straight year.
, who ran for Mexico at the 2012 London Olympics and now represents the U.S. He crossed the line third in 29:40.86. Former Wheat Ridge standout Scott Fauble, who finished in 29:54.09 and now runs for Northern Arizona Elite in Flagstaff, was sixth overall. And 39-year-old Abdi Abdirahman finished in 30:04.22, eighth overall. All three train in Arizona.
“He’s in really good shape, and he’s had a heck of a 2016,” said Ben Rosario, Fauble’s coach. “He wanted to run really well because he’s from Colorado. … He passed two guys in the last (1,000 meters), so he was fighting all the way to the finish.”
Kenya edged the United States in the team competition by just three points — the seventh time it has won as a team, adding to titles in 1998, 2000-03 and 2013. The United States, for its part, looked like a lost cause until the final miles, .
“It was a gutsy move on his part,” Fauble said. “At the time, it felt like I had to hold something back because it felt like I was on the edge.”
The Americans didn’t panic when the race went out hard, holding back and gradually moving up, six of them working together to catch those who started to fade as the course cooked and the hills grew larger.
“It was good,” said Abdirahman, a four-time Olympian who missed the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in January because of injury. “Sometimes you just have to run like a team.”