Two times Los Angeles marathon champion John Kipkosgei Korir will be making his debut at the World Marathon Majors when he will be lining up at the 43rd Edition of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon that will be held on Sunday 9th October 2022 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
The young brother to two time Los Angeles marathon champion Wesley Korir, is determined to set his personal best when he runs against top athletes from across the world.
After winning both Ottawa and Los Angeles among other road races, Korir is optimistic that Kenyans will win the title but mostly he wants to win.
“I have been training well and heading to Chicago I want to run my best and carry the title home. I know it will be so competitive but a win will be a plus for me. I want to win in my first World majors, setting my personal best” said Korir.
He stated that when he will start competing in the world marathon majors, he doesn’t want to run lower races but to keep up the spirit.
“This will be my first world majors and when I will be running at it, I don’t want to run lower races. I want to remain on top and keep the temple high,” he said.
Since he competed in Los Angeles in March, Korir has not competed anywhere and says that the preparation for such a big marathon needs between three to four months.
“I have been consisted in training, together with my teammates and great coaches and running programs. I heavily depend on teammates since they make sure that I run well, they set pace for me among others,” he said.
He added that since he started running, he has never had pacemakers and since Chicago has, it will be an advantage for him.
“I have run, there were n pacemakers but Chicago has pacemakers. That means I have to adjust and run better times than any other. Majority of the athletes that I will be competing with, have had many majors’ marathons unlike who is making a debut. However, some of them have had many races like the world championships but for me I have been resting since March. With pacemakers, we use the same pace but in other races, we use our own pace.
His training mate Edwin Kibichiy said that he met Korir way back in the USA and since then they have been training together.
“When I met Korir, he always has been of great importance to me and other training mates. He is a top athlete now and being his team mate is something important and uplifting each other,” said Kibichiy.
With Korir preparing for a big race like Chicago, Kibichiy said that he needs proper training and sometimes he may be fatigued so he needs support from teammates.
“As teammates, we help in work outs, then running at a certain pace and team mates will make sure that they keep you running at a certain race. We are not going to let him down. Running requires motivation like training for long run like 40km alone, you need someone to support you,” he explained.
“The training should be compatible and we run almost the same race. As he is preparing for 40km, we pace to 35km then we let him complete the race as he is the main athlete training for the major. We start on a slow then we finish with high speed as communication is very key in training,” he added.
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