From my blog: www.albertostretti.org

One month and it will be HamburgMarathon in north Germany with a completely fast and flat course where runnere can run absolutely strong.

In Hamburg we are going to have an important debut such as Eliud Kipchoge.Kipchoge is one the most important athlete of last 10years winning Olympic and World medals in his amazing career.

Last summer in Lille his promising debut in half with a very interesting 59:25 repeated few weeks ago with a very confortable 60:04 in Barcellona.

I had reached Eliud Kipchoge now in training in Rift Valley "My preparation is going good in a positive way and my shape is above average so i am really confident about race.".My doubt was why this strong kenyan tried marathon "I have run every fields of running as professional and now i want to try also this and taste it".Interesting is also to discover why Hamburg for debut and not other important marathons "It's easy:Hamburg gave the chance to try the course far from the race and i can view by myself how it and realized how flat it is and very suitable for a debutant as me on the distance." Last consideration with Eliud Kipchoge was about his expectation from the race "Not so high being new of road running but i am confident in my shape and really hope to give a big smile to Hamburg-organizers when i will cross the finishline".

His first contender will be surely Wilson Kiprop another incredible talent from Kenya.WorldHalfMarathon champ in 2010 in Nanning (CHn) Kiprop had already made his debut in marathon in same year when run 2h09:09 in Prague but only in last year he became a rising star of long distance running.In Eugene he run 27:01.98 on 10000m and an astonishing 59:15 on half in Berlin.Not satisfied he repeated exactly same time this year by winning 3 weeks ago RomaOstiaHalfMarathon in Italy.

Duel very exciting between this two guys who came both from track and have a considerable base-speed.What kind of race we are going to see?!? Course record will be in danger (2h05:58) while 63'at first half is the planned pace for top contenders while 66' pace for others with many guys from so many different nationalities.

A good job from organizers with many africans but also a big group of europeans to give all of them the chance to catch qualification to Moscow worldchamps.

Speaking about outsiders is difficult:so many guys of very high level but young Titus Masai must be checked while a slow time (run in Venice last year with a real bad weather) of presentation.

On european side to be analyzed possible improving by romanian Ionescu against russians, portoguese Ribas and some deutch athletes.

Absolutely exciting it should be women-race well built to help european women to catch World-standars for Moscow.Lisa Hahner will be number one on startlist:with her 2h31:28 she will try to qualify for Moscow going under 2h30 helped by good pacers planned around 74:00 at half.Podium in Hamburg after a long-training period in Kenya it is not impossible for her even if with so strong other european athletes as ukrainan Stetsenko (2h27:51 pb) and Lituanian Lobacevske (2h28:03)

Some good african athletes with times around 2h30 could give some trouble to the top 3 girls but it should be an european affair for the gold.

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