Two of Mexico’s rising triathletes took on the half marathon in Puerto Vallarta at the weekend. Racing along the beach front of the Pacific coast of Jalisco, Aram Michell Peñaflor Moysen and Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal produced a pair of sterling efforts.
Already this year, Peñaflor has finished 31st at WTCS Abu Dhabi and 15th at the New Plymouth World Cup. Having been building into his season and trending in the right direction, he sailed to a time of 1:06:33 in Puerto Vallarta.
That made him a smidge faster than Gábor Faldum who recently ran a best time of 1:07:20. Of course we cannot fully compare the performances given they were on on different courses. Puerto Vallarta was mostly flat and quite a fast course. It is also hard to tell where an athlete is at in their training at any given time.
Nevertheless the gold standard for half marathons in the men’s WTCS remains Morgan Pearson’s 1:01:47 from the end of 2021 (keep an eye out for his #Project59).
For Peñaflor, his time in Puerto Vallarta is a hugely promising step forward. Now in his first year out of the U23 ranks, he is still fairly green in the sport.
He will be taking on WTCS Yokohama as his next race. As it happens, Abu Dhabi was his second WTCS race; he came 38th on debut in Cagliari last October. Yokohama therefore presents a good opportunity for him to break into the top-30 for the first time. With a generally fast, flat run course over the Olympic distance on offer, Peñaflor has reason to be optimistic after offering a glimpse as to where his running is at.
Moreover after three top-10 finishes at World Cups last year, including a 4th place in Tongyeong, he is evidently an athlete that can be expected to take some big strides in the near future.
Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal also had an encouraging result in Puerto Vallarta as she ran a time of 1:18:07.
For perspective, Solveig Løvseth ran 1:13:10 at the Barcelona half marathon back in February. This time last month Løvseth beat Tapia to the bronze medal at the New Plymouth World Cup, out-splitting her by 10 seconds over the 5km.
As with Faldum and Peñaflor we cannot read too much into a comparison of the times between the two women. Given Tapia and Løvseth were so closely matched in New Plymouth, Tapia is likely in heavy training in the build up to WTCS Yokohama.
After a massive block of training over the winter, Tapia will no doubt hit top form once the summer rolls around. Like Peñaflor, she will be hunting a top-30 position in the Olympic rankings at the end of the qualification window to book her slot on the Mexico team at the Paris Olympics. Alternatively, they can qualify by finishing in the top-12 at the Paris Olympic test Event or the WTCS Final in Pontevedra.
In light of their recent showings, both look they might book their Olympic tickets sooner rather than later.
