Amid rain and cold, Thorvilson recaptures marathon glory

Leah Thorvilson didn’t want a serious reminder about how difficult the past 12 months have been in her running career, so she brought some levity to her quest to become a five-time women’s winner of the Little Rock Marathon.

A yellow bib designating Thorvilson as a marathon participant was stamped with the No. 2 and the word “Frankenbooty,” the latter a reference to a lengthy scar that she said remains on her buttock after undergoing surgery to repair a torn hamstring almost one year ago.

It was the first major injury Thorvilson has suffered that required a rigorous recovery, a comeback that came full circle Sunday when she won the women’s division for the fifth time.

Mark Chepses, a Kenyan native who lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, and trains in Mexico, was the top male finisher for the fourth consecutive time when he pulled away from runner-up Bryan Morseman of Bath, N.Y., at around the 20-mile mark.

Thorvilson, 35, crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 42 minutes, 41 seconds, more than five minutes slower than a personal best she set two years ago but almost 13 minutes ahead of female runner-up Megan Zavorka Thomas of Omaha, Neb.

Chepses’ time (2:25.42) was down, too. He won last year in 2:19:45, and his time Sunday was his second slowest of his four victories in Little Rock.

“It was really good,” Chepses said of the race. “Good, but very cold.”

The race started in somewhat mild conditions, a 50-degree temperature reading with 14 mph north winds. By the time Chepses finished, it was 40 degrees with a 32-degree wind chill, and it was down to 37 with a 29-degree windchill when Thorvilson crossed the finish line about 25 minutes after Chepses.

Sunday’s finish was rewarding to Thorvilson, who said she had considerable doubt about whether she could run at the level she once enjoyed, like when she set a personal best in winning her fourth consecutive Little Rock Marathon in 2012 and qualified for the Olympic Trials.

But there Thorvilson was on a soggy Sunday, with a comfortable lead over the rest of the female field as she won in Little Rock, her adopted hometown, for the fifth time in six years.

Thorvilson described Sunday’s conditions as the “ickiest” she’s ever run in, but she said she had trained in worse for much of this winter.

“I’ve trained in colder, I’ve trained in windier, I’ve trained in nasty combinations of all the bad elements,” Thorvilson said. “It was wet, it was cold, it was windy, but it was No. 5.”

In the men’s race, Morseman said he ran about a minute behind Chepses for the first 20 miles, then the two arrived to the turn on Rebsamen Park Road. There, Morseman said, he locked eyes with Chepses as the leader was heading south and Morseman was preparing to make his own turn.

“I knew that was a mistake. I wish I could have been a ghost,” Morseman said. “I knew we still had 5 miles left, that was enough time where I could reel him back in. It was coming, he was closing, but he must have realized the finish was coming close.

“I knew I had to whip out a magic wand if I was going to do anything.”

Chepses, who held on towin by 31 seconds, and Thorvilson hit the finish before the worst of the weather moved through and altered the finish for some runners.

Race organizers decided to reroute some runners at about 11:30 a.m., giving them the option to catch shuttles to quicken their pace to beat the worst of the lightning that moved through central Arkansas.

A year ago Thorvilson had to quit about halfway through the race because of an injury that eventually required surgery. She diverted her course and eventually ran what ended up being the equivalent of a half-marathon to end her string of four consecutive marathon victories.

Twenty-two days after she pulled up, she had surgery to repair a torn hamstring. She spent six weeks on crutches before she started walking, then light jogging. By the end of July, she was back to running after being told it would take her 9 to 15 months to fully recover.

She won the Wynne’s Mid-South Marathon in early November, and Sunday she ran away from the field so quickly that no challenger thought catching her was possible.

“It really just makes everything come full circle,” Thorvilson said. “From two years ago being the best race of my life, to last year being a heartbreak, now to come back and be able to experience a happy finish line again, it’s just really been great.”