Moh Ahmed healthy, in top fitness for much-anticipated half marathon debut Sunday in NYC

CBC

14-03-2025

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Coach Jerry Schumacher still marvels months later at how Moh Ahmed navigated the Paris Olympic men's 10,000-metre final. The way he executed his race, the decision-making, how he positioned himself and his final move on the 25th and last lap.
Ahmed worked his way to second spot 100 metres from the finish line last Aug. 2 at Stade de France after edging past two Ethiopian athletes. But within seconds, American Grant Fisher and then Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi blew by him on the outside. The Canadian placed fourth in 26 minutes 43.79 seconds, 34-100ths behind the Calgary-born Fisher, his former Bowerman Track Club teammate, for a bronze medal.
"That might have been the best 10,000 metres he's ever run," Schumacher said recently. "I know he's run faster [with a 26:34.14 personal best] but how he raced it ... he wasn't trying to get on the podium. He tried to win the gold medal.
"It's hard to walk away from the track when you're running that well against world-class competition."
On Sunday, Ahmed is scheduled to make his long-awaited half marathon debut at 7 a.m. ET in New York City, where fellow Canadians Ben Flanagan, Tristan Woodfine and Andrew Davies will join him in the elite men's field.
Schumacher expects Ahmed to compete outdoors on the track this season, including the 5,000 and/or 10,000 in Tokyo at the World Athletics Championships in September since he has met the qualifying times.
But talk of the 34-year-old making the transition to road racing has never been louder.
Ahmed won the Ottawa 10K road race two years ago for his first Canadian 10K Championships title and planned to run a half marathon in January 2024 but withdrew from the Houston race after tweaking his hamstring/hip flexor in his final workout.
WATCH | Ahmed earns his 1st Canadian 10K Championships title:
Moh Ahmed wins Ottawa 10K at Canadian Championships
2 years ago
Duration 1:46
Moh Ahmed is victorious at the Ottawa 10K with a time of 28 minutes 21.1 seconds to claim his first Canadian 10K Championships title.
Schumacher told CBC Sports the St. Catharines, Ont., native is healthy and in great shape six weeks after a minor foot issue forced Ahmed to withdraw from the men's indoor 3,000m race at the Millrose Games in NYC.
"It's not an easy course," said Schumacher, head coach of Eugene, Ore.-based Swoosh Track Club (formerly Bowerman) who also guides the University of Oregon cross-country and track and field program. "We do road running a couple of times a week so Moh's familiar with hitting the roads.
"Moh's always been a strength-trained athlete, so I think he's going to translate to a half pretty well."
In 61-minute shape
Cam Levins has held the Canadian record of 60 minutes 18 seconds since Feb. 12, 2023, but the New York course isn't record-eligible, per World Athletics, because the straight-line distance between the start and finish is greater than 50 per cent of the total race distance.
However, Schumacher noted Ahmed, who most recently competed last Aug. 30 in a 5,000m race, is in 61-minute shape.
Flanagan, 30, will race his fifth half marathon and first in New York before transitioning to marathon training shortly after the expected arrival of his first child, a girl, later this month.
The former Canadian record holder in the half marathon who still holds national marks on the road across 5K, 8K and 10K wouldn't be surprised if Ahmed lowers the national mark to 59 minutes or faster in the half marathon, but doesn't feel New York is the place to do so.
"When you're as fast as Moh, you're better off letting things feel really, really, really good early [in a half marathon] and be cautious versus letting that deceivingly good pace come back to bite you later," said Flanagan, who ran 61:19 in Houston in January.
Flanagan is now coached by Jon Green, who helped American Molly Seidel to bronze in the 2021 Olympic marathon in Sapporo, Japan. Green also enjoyed immediate success with Calgary-born Rory Linkletter, who clocked two hours 11 minutes 42 seconds last November for the fastest-ever time by a Canadian in the NYC Marathon.
"My No. 1 priority long-term is to be one of the best Canadian marathoners ever, and ideally one of the best marathoners in the world," said Flanagan, who won the Ottawa 10K last spring.
Woodfine finished sixth (1:03:50) in the NYC Half a year ago, a little over a minute shy of his 1:02:40 best, set in Boston in November 2023. Most recently, the 31-year-old Cobden, Ont., native (near Ottawa) was second at the Canadian 5K Championships last September in Montreal.
Davies, 24, will make his NYC Half debut five weeks after lowering his PB by 14 seconds to 1:03:05 in the Vancouver First Half Marathon.
Last Nov. 30, the University of British Columbia law student won the men's 10K in freezing temperatures at the Canadian cross-country championships in London, Ont.