What It’s Like To Be Beating The East Africans

One relatively unknown runner found out last weekend in Baltimore.

The famous artist, Andy Warhol, once quipped that, “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

This quote proved true at last weekend’s Baltimore Marathon when David Berdan,  a relatively unknown local runner, found himself well ahead of the leaders.

“The first mile we were going a lot slower than the pace I wanted to go,” Berdan, a cross-country coach at the Garrison Forest School, recalled afterwards. “I took the lead and thought they would go with me and they just let me go, and by the five-mile marker I was a minute ahead.”

Berdan held on to the lead for much longer than Warhol’s 15 minutes–all the way to the 11-mile mark. At that point, however, the real race began and the Kenyans and Ethiopians in the chase pack decided to pick up the pace significantly.

“I didn’t slow down; they picked it up,” he said. “I knew it was going to happen eventually,”

Berdan ended up finishing 10th overall.

For More: WBALTV.com