HomeProfilesPhoto GalleriesFit RacesRunners RankingBest PerformancesMy Best RunsSign Up

UjENA FIT Club 100 Interesting Running Articles

Best Road Races and the UjENA FIT Club is publishing 100 articles about races, training, diet, shoes and coaching.   If you would like to contribute to this feature, send an email to Bob Anderson at bob@ujena.com .  We are looking for cutting edge material.

Click here to read all Running Articles

Post Image
Pleasanton: The Masters of Double Racing
Posted Wednesday, February 11th, 2015
By David Prokop Pleasanton, Calif., may be a quiet, relaxed community across the bay from San Francisco, but where Double... Read Article
Post Image
Champions of the Double
Posted Monday, September 15th, 2014
Peter Mullin has taken Double Racing® by storm. He broke the 60-64 age group world record in the first Double... Read Article
Post Image
Double Racing Has Truly Arrived!
Posted Monday, September 22nd, 2014
by David Prokop (Editor Best Road Races) Photo: Double 15k top three Double Racing® is a new sport for... Read Article
Post Image
Pritz's Honor
Posted Sunday, May 11th, 2014
By David Prokop, editor Best Road Races The world’s most unusual race met the world’s most beautiful place, in the... Read Article

Share on Facebook
WORLD RECORDS FALL AGAIN!
Sunday, August 11th, 2013
Koskei and Stepanova Shatter the World Records in the Indy Double.
Post Image

By Dave Prokop

A new kind of race came to Indianapolis Sunday, August 11 – and as could be expected, it was fast!

Photo: Liudmila during halftime

 The Double Road Race™ Indy was the event, Julius Koskei and Liudmila Stepanova provided the dramatics, as they each shattered the existing world records in the Double.

 Julius Koskei (left) of Kenya, now living and training in Hebron, Ky., ran an aggregate time of 44:31:09 for the 10K and 5K of the Double, breaking the previous men’s world record of 45:15:05 set by Tyler McCandless in the Overland Park Double on June 30 by almost 45 seconds!

 Koskei, who’s 31 and a full-time professional runner, ran the 10K in 29:48 and the 5K in 14:43. Tyler McCandless had run the 10K in 30:16:50 and the 5k in 14:58:55.

 This was the first time anyone has run the 10K in under 30 minutes in the Double – and that is no mean achievement, considering that in the Double you still have the 5K to run after you complete the 10K!

 Koskei’s young teammate Robert Wambua, 22, also of Kenya, posted an aggregate time under the previous world record as well, running the 10K in 30:06 and the 5K in 14:50 for an aggregate time of 44:57. This was 18 seconds under the previous world record.

 The third-place finisher in the men’s division at Indianapolis – and the first American – was Matthew Proctor of Indianapolis, representing the Ujena Fit Club, who recorded an aggregate time of 47:43 (32:05 for the 10K and 15:37 for the 5K).

 Liudmila Stepanova, a 29-year-old Russian runner also living and training in Hebron, Ky., bettered the women’s world record for the Double, posting an aggregate time of 52:38:06. The previous world record of 53:13:04 had been set by Molly Pritz in Overland Park.

Comments and Feedback
run It was a fun and exciting day in Indy, Ind this morning at the Double Road Race. It was so nice meeting many of you...
Bob Anderson 8/11/13 5:26 pm
,,,,,

Stepanova ran the 10K in 35:21, only three seconds faster than Pritz had run in Overland Park, but then she ran a 17:12 for the 5K (Pritz had run 17:48) to break the record by almost 35 seconds!

 The Russian runner, who doesn’t a word of English, ran so well she finished fourth overall (men and women) at Indianapolis. Only Koskei, Wambua and Proctor in the men’s division finished ahead of her!

Koskei, Wambua and Stepanova all train in Kentucky under Russian coach Larisa Mikhaylova.  And with all three of them, the story in Indianapolis was … they came, they ran, they conquered – and how!

Not to be overlooked in this amazing rush of record breaking at Indianapolis, Christine Kennedy, the 58-year-old Masters marvel from Los Gatos, Calif., won the Double Victory Cup for the best age-graded performance in the Indianapolis Double.

Christine, the only woman 58 or older to have broken three hours for the marathon (she was clocked in 2:55:01 this year at Boston), ran the 10K in 40:16 and the 5K in 19:45 for an aggregate time of 1:00:02. This gave her an age-graded percentage score of 96.72. 

 She has now won the Double Victory Cup in three of the four Doubles that have been run in America thus far. She won the prestigious trophy in Pleasanton and Overland Park;     now Indianapolis makes three!

Libby James, 76-year-old Masters phenomenon from Fort Collins, Colo., won the Double Victory Cup in Denver.

The Indianapolis Double was run on a flat, fast course. The race started and finished at the NCAA Hall of Champions, and the Recovery Zone, where runners can get all things pertinent to recovery (hydration, food, massage, etc.) was situated inside the NCAA Hall of Champions – with air conditioning no less!

The race attracted a wide cross-section of runners. One of the competitors was noted actor Sean Astin (above with race producer Bob Anderson), who starred in the Lord of the Rings series of movies (he plays the hero’s best friend). Apparently Sean has now become the Double’s best friend – he said he loved the Double and is looking forward to running more of them.

 A Gilbert, Ariz., couple, Josh Hays and Courtney Ellabarger, runners true blue, got married the day before in Indianapolis (Courtney grew up in that area), then celebrated their first day as a married couple by running the Double. Ella wore running shoes and a version of her wedding dress in the race! Now there’s something you don’t see that often.

Bob Schul, special honored guest at the Indianapolis Double (he won the gold medal in the 5000 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics), was the official starter for both the 10K and 5K. He said afterwards, “This is a very interesting race. I am amazed that so many people can run that well – twice! In a lot of ways, it’s an amazing race.”

Bob Anderson, creator of the Double and a participant in the event, commented on the new world records: “What they pulled off here was just incredible! Julius running the 10K well under 30 minutes, the 5K well under 15 minutes. And for Liudmila to come back and run the 5K in 17:12, that was impressive!”

Steve Gilbert, the race director of the Indianapolis Double, said, “I was excited and thrilled to have played the part I did in bringing the Double to the city of Indianapolis for the first time. We always maintained that we had a fast, flat course in a beautiful setting, and I think this was borne out by the setting of two new world records. We also provided a wonderful opportunity for all the people who participated – not just in the Double but also in the Kids’ Cup mile and the Ujena 5K run/walk – to explore and enjoy their fitness at their own pace and level. Overall, I think the Indy Double provided a wholesome fitness activity that individuals and families could enjoy at any level of fitness and participation.”

 

Dbl
Double Road Race