Winners of third annual The Woodlands Marathon announced

THE WOODLANDS, Texas -– The third annual Fidelity Investments The Woodlands Marathon Weekend this past Friday and Saturday sent just under 6,800 runners – from the ages of 2 to 82 – to a common finish line along the famed The Woodlands Waterway despite less than optimal running conditions.

Record finishing fields in Saturday’s marathon, St. Luke’s The Woodlands Half Marathon and Fleet Feet Sports 5K were preceded Friday night by approximately 500 youngsters who completed the third annual Pathfinder Pediatric 2K Fun Run.

Grand Prairie, Texas’ Lamech Mosoti and Silver Spring, Maryland’s Dehininet Jara continued their winning ways in the Lone Star state with times of 2:19:30 and 2:44:57, respectively, to win the third annual Fidelity Investments The Woodlands Marathon.

Six days earlier, the duo both won the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth.

Mosoti, 33, and 39-year-old Joseph Mutinda, winner of the Austin Marathon less than two weeks before, broke from fellow Kenyans Julius Kirwa Choge and Richard Chelimo just past mile 18 and put more than 40 seconds on the duo at the 35-kilometer mark.

The two worked together to ensure Kirwa, who entered Saturday’s race with the freshest legs of a pack that started out with as many as 11 runners in the early miles, was unable to close a gap that grew to two minutes before Mosoti outsprinted Mutinda by 10 seconds to break the tape for the $4,000 win.

Mosoti added $450 to his winnings by capturing all three premiums at 10K, 21K and 35K.

The 30-year-old Jara, who opened an early 40-second lead in the first 5K at Cowtown on The Woodlands Marathon’s 2012 overall winner Camille Herron and grew it to a 3-minute plus win, had her work cut out for her in Russia’s Lyubov Denisova.

The 42-year-old Denisova, who defended her Detroit Free Press Marathon title last October and trains in Gainesville, Florida, actually won the first two of the three premiums at the 10K and 21K timing mats – and was still four one-hundreths of a second behind Jara at 35K -- before starting to cramp near mile 23. Speeding up to a 6:15 pace over the last four and a half miles, Jara posted an 8-minute plus win over Denisova to pick up $4,150, which included the 35K premium.

With her new women’s masters event record of 2:53:11, Denisova picked up $500 for the masters win to go along with the $2,000 for finishing second overall and $300 for two of the three women’s premiums.

Houston’s Peter Lawrence, 42, won the men’s masters race – and $500 -- in 2:43:34. The St. Luke’s The Woodlands Half Marathon had much less drama than the marathon as Georgetown, Texas’ Phillip Kandie and 18-year-old Cynthia Jerop from Hebron, Kentucky easily handled their fields for decisive wins of nearly four minutes each in 1:08:50 and 1:15:37, respectively.

The two collected $950 each, including $750 for the win and $200 for the half marathon’s 10K premium.

A pair of newly-minted masters, 40-year-olds Campbell Ilfrey of Louisville, Colorado and Jamie Cousatte of Adair, Oklahoma, collected $250 each for winning the masters titles in the half marathon in 1:15:28 and 1:30:24, respectively. Former Texas Longhorn Brock Simmons, 25, of Denton lowered the 5K race record by almost a minute with a winning time of 16:15, while Houston’s Kristin Smith, 23, won the women’s race in 21:58.

Houstonians Steve Maliszewski and Victoria Webster (Team Ginger Ninja) won the two-person relay in 2:59:44 while Montgomery County residents Thomas Belsha, Peter Bigler, Andy Brock and Brent Dunagan (Team Microdoc Petroluke) captured the four-person relay in 3:20:35.

Over 1,200 volunteers supported participants, which included runners from 45 states and nine countries, throughout the two-day event which included a Health and Fitness Expo at the Marriott Waterway Hotel on Friday.

Through the event’s Launch Charity Challenge, a record 135 race participants raised $135,397 for 24 different charities.

Race management awarded an additional $18,000 to the charities of the 43 top fundraisers to bring the total giving to $153,597 – shattering last year’s mark by almost $41,000.

Bellaire, Texas’s Diane McGehee, who completed the half marathon in 2:52:11, raised $37,476 on behalf of Together In Hope, which works with marginalized communities in El Salvador, the Phillipines and Ethiopia, to be the program’s leading individual fundraiser for the second straight year.

Her effort once again netted her charity the top prize of $3,000.

Despite the addition of a new single-loop marathon course, challenging racing conditions limited the number of Boston qualifiers to 65 – down from both of the first two years of the return of The Woodlands Marathon.

For more information, including complete results, on the Fidelity Investments The Woodlands Marathon, please visit www.thewoodlandsmarathon.com.

Marathon – Men

1. Lamech Mosoti, 33, Grand Prairie, TX, 2:19:30, $4,450#

2. Joseph Mutinda, 39, Kenya, 2:19:40, $2,000

3. Julius Kirwa Choge, 35, Kenya, 2:21:49, $1,000

4. Richard Chelimo, 32, Toledo, Ohio, 2:26:32, $500

5. Rio Reina, 26, Austin, TX, 2:30:41, $250

* $4,000 winning prize, plus 10K, 21K and 35K primes ($450)



Marathon – Men, Masters

1. Peter Lawrence, 42, Houston, TX, 2:43:34, $500

2. Rick Meyer, 47, Dallas, TX, 2:58:13, $250

3. Gordon Christie, 44, Katy, TX, 2:58:41, $100



Marathon – Women

1. Dehininet Jara, 30, Silver Spring, MD, 2:44:57, $4,150* 2. Lyubov Denisova, 42, Gainesville, FL, 2:53:11, $2,300**

3. Allie Moore, 27, Salt Lake City, UT, 2:56:04, $1,000

4. Mina DeMarco, 30, Blacksburg, VA, 3:10:31, $500

5. Laurie Shea, 35, Prosper, TX, 3:10;42, $250

* $4,000 winning prize, plus 10K prime ($150)

** $2,000 second place prize, plus 21K and 35K primes ($300)



Marathon – Women, Masters

1. Lyubov Denisova, 42, Gainesville, FL, 2:53:11, $500^

2. Wendy Karpel, 43, Bristow, VA, 3:26:51, $250

3. Marlene Hicks, 48, Georgetown, TX, 3:28:15, $100

^ Event record



Half Marathon – Men

1. Phillip Kandie, 30, Georgetown, TX, 1:08:50, $950+

2. Lane Boyer, 24, The Woodlands, TX, 1:12:32, $500

3. Steven Soprano, 26, Flagstaff, AZ, 1:12:36, $500^^

4. Stewart Harwell, 30, Houston, TX, 1:12:38, $250^^

5. Abraham Kiprop Rutto, 31, Georgetown, TX, 1:12:41, $50

^^ Additional monies awarded by race management to address course misrouting



Half Marathon – Men, Masters

1. Campbell Ilfrey, 40, Louisville, CO, 1:15:28, $250

2. Brian Haskett, 42, Tomball, TX, 1:25:07, $100

3. Garrett Rychlik, 46, Cypress, TX, 1:25:28, $50



Half Marathon – Women

1. Cynthia Jerop, 18, Hebron, KY, 1:15:37, $950+

2. Grace Kahura, 30, Hebron, KY, 1:19:26, $500

3. Megan Saloom, 25, The Woodlands, TX, 1:20:17, $250

4. Amy Shackelford, 26, San Antonio, TX, 1:20:38, $100

5. Anita Quirino, 31, San Antonio, TX, 1:21:52, $50

+ $750 winning prize, plus 10K prime ($200)



Half Marathon – Women, Masters

1. Jamie Cousatte, 40, Adair, OK, 1:30:24, $250

2. Caroline Chamness, 48, Kingwood, TX, 1:35:37, $100

3. Christi Moore, 42, The Woodlands, TX, 1:37:00, $50



5K – Men

1. Brock Simmons, 25, Denton, TX, 16:15++

2. Nicolas Studebaker, 14, The Woodlands, TX, 18:11

3. Bernardo Rocha, 24, Houston, TX, 18:13 ++ Event record



5K – Women

1. Kristen Smith, 23, Houston, TX, 21:58

2. Isabel Velazquez, 14, Katy, TX, 22:15

3. Shannon Pope, 42, The Woodlands, TX, 22:53