Running in perfect weather conditions on a flat, fast course, Kenya’s Risper Gesabwa absolutely destroyed the women’s world record in the Double 15K (10K + 5K) by running an aggregate time of 48:45.2 for the event at the third annual Pleasanton Double Racing® Festival, Sun., Dec. 21.

Gesabwa, who’s 25, ran the 10K in 32:55.6 and the 5K in 15:49.6, outrunning U.S. Olympian Kim Conley in the process, to better the world record by an astonishing three minutes, 28 seconds! The previous world record of 52:13 had been set by Molly Pritz in Pacific Grove, Calif., this past May when she ran the 10K in 34:39 and the 5K in 17:34.

Conley, 28, of West Sacramento, Calif., was second on Sunday with an aggregate time of 49:24.0  (33:34.8/15:49.2). Alycia Cridebring, 22, of Sacramento, Calif., was third in 51:24.4 (34:14.5/ 17:09.8) and Rachel Mitchell, 23, also of Sacramento, fourth in 51:50 (34:48.9/17:02.0). Thus the second-, third- and fourth-place finishers also broke the previous world record.

As a result of Gesabwa’s blockbuster performance in Pleasanton, Kenyans now hold both the men’s and women’s world records in the Double 15K.

Julius Koskei, who holds the men’s world record of 44:24.01 (29:45.20/14:38.81) set in Pleasanton last year, competed in the men’s race on Sunday, but despite leading both the 10K and 5K stages most of the way, he was not at his best due to a bad cold and Ethiopia’s Tesfaye Alemayehu was clearly stronger over the last mile of each leg, winning with an aggregate time of 45:05.7 (30:07.5/14:58.2). Koskei finished second in 45:51.2 (30:46.2/15:04.9).

Christine Kennedy of Los Gatos, Calif., running her last race before she turns 60 on Dec. 29^th, bid farewell to her 50s in style as she won the Masters division (40 and over) -- at age 59! In addition, she took home the Double Victory Cup for best age-graded performance in the race as she ran the 10K in 39:51.1 and the 5K in 19:50.5 for an aggregate time of 59:41.6 and an age-graded score of 98.4.

Kennedy, who has won the Double Victory Cup in eight of the nine Doubles she’s run, competed in the inaugural Pleasanton Double 15K on Dec. 23, 2012 – the first Double held on American soil – and posted an aggregate time of 58:34. Of course, she was two years younger in 2012.

Risper Gasabwa, who’s 5’7”, 110 pounds and originally from Kisii, Kenya, but now lives in Atlanta, Ga., first heard of the Double 15K from Bob Anderson, creator of Double Racing®, way back in July of 2012 but had never run one until Sunday.

Going into the race in Pleasanton, she had a clear objective and a bit of trepidation.

“My strategy was to master the Double Road Race® and to go under 50 (minutes) – and I did,” she said afterwards.

“For me it was so exciting because it was my first time to run the Double and Bob told me there was a competitor in the race (Kim Conley) who had run in the Olympics, so I was scared. When you run against someone like that, you’ve got to be scared, because you don’t know how it will be – how you will start and how you will finish. And when you run with Olympic athletes and do well, it shows you if you train hard maybe you can go to the Olympics, too.”

The way Gesabwa ran on Sunday, it’s the other runners who needed to be scared of her. She and Conley stayed together for the first mile of the 10K, then, as Gesabwa explains, “I started to push, and when I looked behind, I found I was alone. So I just kept going to try to build as big a lead as possible.”

She finished the 10K in 32:55.6 -- she has a personal best in the 10K of 31:41, but that was in a straight race where she wouldn’t have to come back and run a 5K. The 32:55.6 put her in the leader’s yellow jersey going into the 5K and gave her a lead of 39 seconds over Conley, which meant the race was now essentially hers. It also meant she was way ahead of the women’s world record pace for the Double 15K, but there was still the 5K to run and the concluding leg is always something of an unknown in Double Racing®.

“For the 5K I wasn’t sure what time I would run – maybe 16:50 – because I didn’t know how I would feel. When we started, we started at a very high speed – I think we ran the first mile in 5:10. At first she (Conley) got a lead on me (maybe 30-40 meters), but then I closed the gap and by the end of the first mile I had caught her. When I caught her, I felt comfortable because now I thought, ‘Maybe I can run a good 5K.’  I wasn’t as uncertain as I had been at the start.”

The two of them then ran shoulder to shoulder until the very end, Conley not able or interested in trying to launch another attack to try to overcome a now insurmountable time deficit – until the American, with her superior finishing speed, sprinted at the very end to pip her Kenyan rival 15:49.2 to 15:49.6.

Thus was a new Pleasanton champion crowned and a new women’s world record set – and what a record!

Without a doubt, Risper Gasabwa had every reason to be happy about her double run to victory on Sunday because her win, the new world record and going under 49 minutes netted her the single biggest payday in the history of Double Racing® -- $2,100! This was the first time that time bonuses were available in the Double and Gasabwa received $1,000 alone for breaking 49 minutes.

Julius Koskei, who holds the men’s world record in the Double 15K, was back in action on Sunday on the very course where he had set the record last December, but he was recovering from a bad cold and was not at his best.

Before the race on Sunday, Koskei, one of the nicest sportsmen you’ll ever find, even told his main competitor, Tesfaye Alemayehu, who finished second to him last year, “This time I am not so strong.” 

Alemayehu, a tall, handsome Ethiopian who lives in Antioch, Calif., and was fully prepared and at his best for this race, could have taken this as a signal he should push a hard pace in order to overwhelm Koskei and go after his world record as well. But instead he chose to run a strategic race – of course, he also might have thought Koskei was just leading him astray and trying to maneuvre him into setting the pace.

In any event, Alemayehu, who’s 29, was content to follow as Koskei, 32, led the first five miles of the opening 10K. Then the Ethiopian surged past so fast, all Koskei could do was hold on as best he could as Alemayehu opened a gap of almost 40 seconds on him over the last 1¼ miles. They finished in 30:07.5 and 30:46.2 respectively.

In the concluding 5K after the recovery break, Koskei felt well recovered despite his earlier effort and went in front again, just in case he could somehow make up the lost time. But he soon realized there was no way that was going to happen because Alamayehu still looked strong. Then at two miles, an unheralded young American, Jovanny Godinez, 23, of Hayward, Calif., who had run the 10K in 31:10, shot into the lead! “We didn’t know he could run a 5K like that,” Koskei said afterwards. Alemayehu went with Godinez; Koskei was suddenly left behind on his own.

Over the final mile, Alemayehu, his victory now assured, stayed close to Godinez, and at the finish the American was only a few yards ahead as they clocked 14:56.7 and 14:58.2 respectively. Koskei finished the 5K in 15:04.9. 

Alemayayehu had won but Koskei’s record had survived, and afterwards Koskei opined that if Alemayehu had really run aggressively from the gun, instead of choosing to follow, he might indeed have broken the record or at least threatened it.

There were many other impressive performances in Pleasanton in addition to the heroics provided by Gesabwa, Conley, Alemayehu, Koskei, Godinez, Kennedy and company.

A young Swedish runner, 19-year-old Anders Fox, who’s in America on a two-week vacation, set a new world 19 and under men’s record for the Double 15K as he posted an aggregate time of 48:51.0 (32:53.0/15:58.0) to break the world record of 50:47 previously held by Jose Pina, Jr., of San Jose, Calif.

Young Pina, who’s only 17, was also in the race on Sunday, but this time he finished as the runner-up with a combined time of 49:13.7 (33:01.7/16:12.0). He’ll still have two years to recapture the 19 and under record.

Also on the program at the third annual Pleasanton Double Racing® Festival on Sunday were a Double 8K (5K + 3K) and a Kids’ Cup 1½ Mile (1 mile + half-mile).

Nicholas Spector, 23, of Sonoma, Calif., and Ivan Medina, 28, of Hayward. Calif., made an exciting battle out of it in the Double 8K, running 16:02.6 and 16:03.7 in the opening 5K leg.  However, in the concluding 3K, Spector prevailed by an even 10 seconds, running 8:30.0 compared to Medina’s 8:40.0, to win on aggregate time, 24:32.6 to 24:43.7. Dylan Isaacson, 25, of San Francisco finished third in 25:13.7 (16:23.7/8:50.0).

The women’s winner in the Double 8K was Andrea Page, 38, of Pacific Grove, Calif., who ran the 5K in 20:28.4 and the 3K in 11:00 for a combined time of 31:28.4. Masters runner Stacy Paxton, 44, of Los Gatos, Calif., was the runner-up with an aggregate time of 33:58.1 (21:49.4/12:08.7), and Marie Arcidiacono, 27, of Pittsburgh, Calif., finished third in 35:33.5 (23:22.0/12:11.4).

The Bob Anderson Kids’ Cup Double 1½ Mile was won by Omar Pina, 13, of San Jose, who ran the mile in 5:10 (remember, this is a 13-year-old!) and the half-mile in 2:42 for a combined time of 7:52. Omar is the younger brother of Jose Pina, Jr. Their father, Jose Pina, Sr., ran the Double 15K on Sunday, as did Jose Jr., and finished second in the men’s 40-45 age group with an aggregate time of 51:37.6 (34:34.9/17:02.7).

Natalie Mazaud, 12, of Carmel, Calif., was the girl’s winner in the Kids’ Cup Double 1½ Mile as she ran the mile in 5:56.3 and the half-mile in 3:02.1 for an aggregate time of 8:58.5. 

The inaugural Pleasanton Double in December of 2012 was held on a rainy day with gusting winds. Last year there was no rain but it was frigid at the start of the opening 10K leg. This year the weather was all but perfect – no wind, 60 degrees, no runner could ask for more, unless it was an all-downhill course.

There were a total of 846 registered runners in the three races at Pleasanton on Sunday, the highest total in a Double Racing® competition yet. A sport that some initially might have thought was some kind of fad or gimmick is clearly building a strong following, especially since Double Racing® has been expanded to include races over a variety of distances – Double 21K, Double 15K, Double 8K, Kids’ Double 1½ Mile, etc.

Bob Anderson, who founded Runner’s World magazine when he was a senior in high school and now in his 60s has created the sport of Double Racing®, competed in the Double 15K at Pleasanton on an injured foot (he competes in every Double 15K), finishing third in the 65-69 age group with an aggregate time of 1:13:01.2 (49:39.3/23:21.9).

“The reaction to this Double was incredible!” he said afterwards. “The reaction the previous day to the awards ceremony for the 2014 season – incredible! As the years go by, I’m sure this awards ceremony is going to become a very big event in its own right.”

He didn’t say it but his words implied it – sort of an Academy Awards for the sport of Double Racing®, which he’s worked so hard to create and build into a solid and vibrant entity on the American sports scene.    

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