Daniel Ellis Prevails At Rocket City Marathon

The 27-year-old marathoner had originally hoped to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials.

Daniel Ellis, the winner of last weekend’s Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, Alabama, has learned from his mistakes. At the 15-mile mark, Joseph Ngetich, the man Eliis had been racing for the win, decided to make a move.

Ellis let him go.

“There was definitely a bit of regrouping going on there, because two years ago that’s the point where I got broken,” Ellis recalled. “I didn’t try to go with him at first because I knew it would have been disaster.”

By the 19-mile mark, Ellis had caught Ngetich, who ended up not finishing the race. Ellis’ winning time was 2:24:37. He nearly lost the race in the final mile, however, when Kameron Ulmer of Boise Idaho put on an impressive surge to finish second only 13 seconds behind Ellis.

Originally, Ellis had wanted to run an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying standard (sub 2:19:00), but blamed the wind for not being able to pull it off.

“The original plan was to go out and run a 5:18 to 5:20 [mile] pace the whole way,” Ellis said. “But there was no way today. Instead of it being a race to qualify, it became a race to win.”

For More: AI.com