LOS ANGELES (AP) Weldon Kirui and Daniel Limo are ignoring all the fuss about the heat for Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon. It's a matter of perspective.
''It's very cool here. It's very nice,'' Kirui, who has been training in Kenya for this year's race, said with a smile Friday.
Forecasts for race day call for temperatures in the 80s.
Limo won last year's race in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 36 seconds and said the heat then was not a problem.
''It's something that will give me a challenge because I have to defend my title from last year,'' he said.
Kirui, who finished second in the 2011 LA Marathon, notes that it's been about 80 degrees the last two weeks in Kericho, Kenya, where he has been training.
''The race is in the morning,'' Kirui said. ''It will not be hot.''
Elite runners are to start at 6:55 a.m., enabling them to complete the 26.2-mile course from Dodger Stadium downtown to the Santa Monica Pier before it gets uncomfortably hot.
''Last year, it was bad. Too hot,'' said Simegn Abnet of Ethiopia, who competed in the LA Marathon for the first time a year ago. ''I have been working very hard, and it's not going to be as hot.''
According to the National Weather Service, it could hit 87 degrees. Last year, there were more than 26,000 runners when temperatures topped 90 degrees.
Kenya does not have a race to determine its Olympic marathon representative. The decision is made by the country's track federation and based on times leading to the Rio Games.
''They see all the results all over the world, all the times,'' Kirui said.
So Sunday's result, regardless of how hot it gets, could be the ticket to Rio for Kirui and Limo.
