PHILADELPHIA -- The winner of the Philadelphia Independence Marathon says he felt certain he could win if he followed his pre-race strategy.
But Derick Ringo Adamson, 24, a member of the Jamaican Olympic team who crossed the finish line Sunday at Independence Hall in 2:16.39, said he also kept an eye on Jeoff Mearns, the second-place finisher.
Adamson, who outraced more than 4,000 other runners on the 26-mile, 385-yard course, took the lead about 14 miles into the race at the top of Chestnut Hill and stayed in front until the end.
'My strategy was to move into first place at the top of the Chestnut Hill hill and my plan worked,' the Glassboro State College student said.
'I just hit it right,' he continued. 'I kept checking to see where Mearns was. He was breathing hard. For me it was just a matter of pressing hard and I knew I could contain him.'
Mearns, 25, of Morristown, N.J., finished in 2:17.29, bettering by 22 seconds his fifth-place time in the 1983 marathon.
Barbara Filutze, 38, of Erie, Pa., finished first among women in 2:42.30. Filutze, the mother of three competing in her 25th marathon, finished second in the last two years and 10th three years ago, the first year of the race.
Her husband, Mike, finished 88th among men in 2:43.08.
Adamson, who placed 51st for Jamaica in the 1984 Olympic marathon, finished sixth last year in the Philadelphia marathon at 2:18.40.
Last year's marathon winner, Sam Pelletier of upstate New York, did not enter the contest this year.
The marathon began at Temple University's campus in Ambler, Montgomery County.
