British star Farah warms up for London with victory in the New Orleans half-marathon
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Double Olympic champion Mo Farah added another British record to his collection with a hard-fought victory in the New Orleans half marathon today.
Farah outsprinted Ethiopia's Gebre Gebremariam to win in a time of 60 minutes 59 seconds, taking four seconds off the mark held by Nick Rose since 1985.
The 29-year-old ran faster on his debut in New York in 2011, but his time of 60mins 23secs does not count as a record due to the gradient on the course.
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Farah and Gebremariam enjoyed a 10-second lead over the chasing pack at halfway and stretched their advantage to a minute at 10 miles.
Neither man was able to break clear in the closing stages and it came down to a sprint finish where Farah put his track speed to good use, edging out former world cross country champion Gebremariam by a single second.
Fellow Briton Scott Overall was seventh with Helen Clitheroe fourth in the women's race, more than four minutes behind comfortable winner Meseret Defar of Ethiopia.
'I was working pretty hard,' admitted Farah, who already holds national records at 5,000 metres and 10,000m on the track, over 10 kilometres on the road and 3,000m indoors.
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'It was an effort. I was really pushing it. It was definitely a fast course and had good guys pushing the pace. With about 200 metres left I just kicked it in.'
Farah has already announced he will run the first half of this year's London Marathon before taking on the full 26.2 miles for the first time in the capital in 2014.
'It's not going to be easy, I'm going to have to train for it,' he added. 'It is going to be a completely different ball game.
'Today does not necessarily mean that I am going to be amazing at it, I've got to go out there and do it. It is definitely going to be a longer race and going to be exciting. I am quite excited.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2283725/Mo-Farah-wins-New-Orleans-half-marathon.html#ixzz2LvHeFcKb
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