NYC Marathon Live: Chepkirui Leads the Women at 15K, Stephen Jones Leads the Men at 5K — and Nobody Has Broken Away
Two races, two packs, no daylight: the women's elite field reached 15K with ten runners inside two seconds, and the men's field opened the same way, with defending champion Benson Kipruto sitting sixth, two seconds off the lead.
The professional races at the New York City Marathon are refusing to sort themselves out. Through 15 kilometers of the women's race on Sunday, former champion Sheila Chepkirui led in 52:58 — with Viola Cheptoo second, American marathon debutant Weini Kelati third, and defending champion Hellen Obiri seventh, the entire top ten separated by less than two seconds at roughly 5:41 per mile.
The pack has been the story from the first checkpoint. Carrie Ellwood led the women through 5K in 18:23 with Obiri and 2010 champion Edna Kiplagat virtually alongside her; at 10K, Cheptoo led in 35:45 with Obiri and Kiplagat right behind and Kelati fourth. Nobody has been dropped, nobody has attacked, and the race that Obiri won last year in a course-record 2:19:51 is, at this pace and in this company, still anybody's.
The men's race, which started at 9:05 a.m., opened in the same shape. American Stephen Jones led through 5K in 15:30, with Zouhair Talbi and Edward Cheserek next, American record holder Conner Mantz fifth and defending champion Benson Kipruto sixth — the top ten inside three seconds at about five minutes per mile. Kipruto won last year's race by three hundredths of a second; a patient sixth in a bunched field is a familiar place for him to be.
Behind the professionals, the mass race is fully underway: Wave 1 started at 9:10 a.m. and the remaining waves follow through 11:30. This file is a live checkpoint report, stamped as the races stood when this desk read the splits — the finish files, with winners and times, follow as soon as the leaders reach Central Park.
