At the hint of the horn, Lornah Kiplagat broke like a sprinter out of imaginary starting blocks. In two steps, she was in the lead on Central Park West. Barely a block later, Kiplagat again made the New York Mini women’s 10-kilometer a race for second place.
She cut a solitary but familiar figure yesterday morning as she entered Central Park, surging up the hills and gliding elegantly down. Fans cried out, “Lornah!” or her nickname, “Simba!” — Swahili for lion — while Kiplagat, a Kenyan-born Dutch citizen, left the elite women’s field in the dust on the way to her third straight victory.
“When I start, I don’t have a strategy,” Kiplagat, 33, said, smiling. “I just go.”
Her five-second lead in the first mile grew to 25 seconds at the halfway mark, 3.1 miles. Kiplagat slowed toward the end to high-five fans and finished in 32 minutes 10 seconds for her fourth victory in the 36th running of this race.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/sports/othersports/10run.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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