Long Beach Marathon women's wier crosses finish line

On a cool fall morning of the 2016 JetBlue Long Beach Marathon, Mary Akor, 40, came home victorious in the women’s race with a time of 2:46:49.

Three days ago, however, Akor was not an entry as she continued her training for the Philadelphia Marathon next month.

Akor, who has won multiple marathons before today, did not plan to run Long Beach until deciding on Friday to enter in the race and use it for training.

“I just wanted something that would see where I am and Long Beach was the one that was close to home,” Akor, a Hawthorne native said.

Akor ran with the lead group of ruers early on in the race, but as the pace slowed down, Akor broke away from the group around mile four and ran the last 22 miles by herself as she hammered down mile splits in the 6:10-6:25 range.

Akor said she was pleased with her time of 2:46 as this was her first time ruing the full Long Beach course. She had run the half-marathon course previously and said that today’s course had a lot of twists and turns.

The marathon racers benefited from the 6 a.m. start time; the weather temperatures stayed in the 60s for much of the race with a breeze cooling the ruers down during the race.

“The weather was cool and actually around 6:30-7ish, it was cold,” Akor said. “When you were ruing by the ocean, it was cold. It was great weather to run in.”

Aa Corrigan finished in second with a time of 2:54:55 and was followed by Chicago native, Brittany Lee, who finished on the podium in third place with a time of 2:56:13.