Heat, humidity don’t stop record-breaking run

Full article from The News & Advance can be found here.

Despite the high humidity and heat, history was made at the 46th annual Virginia 10 Miler on Saturday when Vicoty Chepngeno broke a long-standing record.

Chepngeno crossed the finish line first among women runners with a recorded chip time of 53 minutes and 39 seconds, breaking Anne Audain’s 1984 record of 53 minutes, 47 seconds. Audain, a former Olympian runner, served as the special guest for the event last year.

“I’m happy. I had a good feeling,” Chepngeno said as she drank water on the sideline.

Chepngeno said she has God, her trainers and all of her support to thank for her success.

“The last mile was very hard. I’m so happy,” Chepngeno said.

The Kenyan runner ran the Virginia 10 Miler in 2018 for the first time and finished first among women and 15th overall. During the award ceremony Saturday, she told the audience it was not easy to break the record on the challenging course.

“I’m happy today to win and to break the course record set many years ago,” she said. “We struggle and struggle and at long last we break it.”

The new record holder for the first time in 35 years was 20th overall, out of 1,646 registered 10 Miler runners.

Raymond Magut finished the race in first place overall with a time of 47 minutes, 28 seconds. Magut beat Julius Kogo by about 10 seconds, with both men sprinting nearly neck-and-neck to the finish line in front of E.C. Glass on Langhorne Road. Had Kogo won, he would have been the only person to have won the Genworth Virginia 10 Miler six times.

Continue reading on The News & Advance website.