Mo Farah's half-a-race debut on the London Marathon course delighted the crowds lining the streets of the capital who had turned out to catch a glimpse of the double Olympic champion but left many in the athletics world scratching their heads as to what the 30-year-old had gained from the experience.
Running the first half of a marathon is one thing but understanding how the body reacts to the latter stages is entirely another. As Farah himself had admitted before the race, he would have no idea where the pain would hit him over a 26.2-mile distance; he will have to wait until next year, when he makes his full debut, to find out the answer.
Still the Briton defended his decision to run, describing the experience as a huge learning curve. "I've learned the biggest lesson of my life, really," Farah told the BBC. "If I would have come out here next year and made a mess of it, mentally it's hard to deal with that. So it's a good practice for me – waking up here in the morning, being round here, dealing with the media and everything. I've learned a lot, for sure. I'll probably watch back this race and see how much of a mess I made of the drinks."
Before the start there had been some confusion over Farah's race preparations, as the Londoner was captured live on air telling BBC Radio 5 live that he had overslept and was in danger of missing the athletes' bus. Farah later revealed this to be a joke tweeting, "Just to clarify, I had breakfast at 5am today, my comment about sleeping in was just a joke. I was one of the first athletes on the bus to the start."
Dropping out before the halfway mark, having run for just over an hour, the Briton did reveal his surprise at the enduring speed of the elite front runners. "As I was coming off the bridge I thought, 'Are they going to keep this pace going?' I got quite a shock at that point."
By now well accustomed to defending his decision to run the unorthodox race, Farah also made the point that others had trialled the event before him in their own way, such as Stanley Biwott, who ran as a pacemaker in 2011 and finished eighth this year.
Once Farah dropped out, however, the rest of the field were left to get on with the business end of the race. That process looked gruelling as the pack struggled to cope with the effects of a speedy first half – the elite pack hit the half distance in 61min 34sec, just inside Patrick Makau's 2011 world record time.
Race organisers had described the men's field as the greatest ever assembled in London and in the end it was left to the strongest to win, with Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia overtaking Emmanuel Mutai, the course record-holder, in the final 800m to become champion for a second time. Kebede, the 2010 winner and 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, had initially looked set for second place behind the Kenyan, Mutai, but he fought hard to make up a 30sec deficit and left his rival trailing to claim the win in 2hr 6min 4sec.
Afterwards Kebede, who was overlooked for selection for the Olympics last year, complained at the pace of the race. "The pace was too high, because of that I am too tired," he said. The 26-year-old said he hoped his performance will have convinced the Ethiopian selectors to pick him for this year's world championships. "I know I'll show them my talent."
Meanwhile Britain's Scott Overall, Farah's former training partner from their junior days, dropped out at 25km after experiencing problems in the build-up to the race, and Derek Hawkins was the first Briton across the line in 2:16.50 in 13th place.
In the women's race the world record-holder, Paula Radcliffe, was left to sleep easy after Priscah Jeptoo won in a time of 2:20.15, close to the Kenyan's personal best time but almost five minutes slower than the world best mark set 10 years ago by the Briton. Jeptoo, Olympic silver medallist in the marathon who last year finished third in London over this same course, took advantage of the Olympic champion Tiki Gelana's race-changing clash with a wheelchair racer, Josh Cassidy, at a drinks station which saw the Ethiopian tumble and, though she got up and kept on running, she could not recover her form and finished 16th overall.
Jeptoo, training partner of Rita Jeptoo who won in Boston last week, took the lead from the world champion, Edna Kiplagat, around the 21st mile and said she was thrilled with the win. Susan Partridge was the only British woman home in a world championship qualifying time, beating her personal best by over three minutes to cross the finish line in 2:30:46 in ninth place.
In a fitting tribute to the victims of the Boston marathon bombing, the American wheelchair racer Tatyana McFadden – Boston's winner who promised to carry the memory of those killed or injured last week – won in 1hr 46min 2sec. The three-times Olympic gold medallist in 2012 was hit by a puncture in the Olympic marathon but put on an impressive display on the streets of London on Sunday. Meanwhile Britain's Shelly Woods unexpectedly finished out of the medals in fifth place.
David Weir suffered a shock defeat in the men's race, the Paralympic hero dubbed the "Weirwolf" had been hoping to secure a seventh win in London but crossed the line in fifth place, two seconds behind the winner Kurt Fearnley, after a closely fought sprint finish.
