NORTHWEST NOTES: Saturday, April 30, 2016

| April 30, 2016 9:30 PM

Limo and Langat top seeds

at 40th Lilac Bloomsday Run

SPOKANE — A sprint finish is what spectators hope for and race directors dream about, and this year’s women’s field for the 40th edition of the Lilac Bloomsday Run is looking like that’s exactly what might happen.

Returning women’s champion Cynthia Limo is back to defend her title from 2015. Limo is coming off a 2nd place finish at the 2016 IAAF Half Marathon Championships, where she ran 1:06:04 — the second fastest half marathon in the world this year and the fourth fastest in history.

Limo will be challenged over the 12-kilometer course by training partner Monicah Ngige, who just finished 10th at the Kenyan Cross Country Nationals and fifth at the World’s Best 10K in Puerto Rico (31:58), and Risa Takenaka, the first Japanese runner to race Bloomsday in 14 years. Americans Mattie Suver and Blake Russell will be the leaders in the battle for the American prize money.

In the men’s race, a new champion will be crowned on Sunday, as last year’s winner, Lani Rutto, won’t be returning. Philip Langat comes in as the top seed after finishing fourth at Bloomsday last year. Earlier this year he recorded a fourth-place finish at the World’s Best 10K, where his time was the sixth fastest 10K in the world this year. Langat will have to contend with last year’s third-place finisher, Issac Mwangi, and the youngster, 19-year-old John Muritu, eighth at Bloomsday 2015.

Langat and Muritu should also be challenged by top-seeded Americans Patrick Smyth, Jeffrey Eggleston and Bellingham, Wash., product Jake Riley, who was an All-American in track and cross country at Stanford.

Nearly $100,000 in prize money is offered in the 2016 Lilac Bloomsday Run, including a $10,000 purse ($5,000/$2,500/$1,250/$750/$500) for the top male and female Americans who finish in the top 25. The Lilac Bloomsday Run is the fifth race in the PRRO Circuit of major U.S. road races. Drug testing of top competitors is conducted at all PRRO Circuit events in partnership with the US Anti-Doping Agency.

A field of nearly 47,000 runners and walkers are expected to have entered by the time registration closes on Saturday evening. Procrastinators will have until 6:30 tonight to sign up.