Army Sgt. Augustus Maiyo leads teammate Lt. Robert Cheseret across the finish line at the Army Ten-Miler, Oct. 9, 2016. (C.J. Lin/Stars and Stripes)
Army Sgt. Augustus Maiyo leads teammate Lt. Robert Cheseret across the finish line at the Army Ten-Miler, Oct. 9, 2016. (C.J. Lin/Stars and Stripes)
Stephanie Reich crosses the finish line as the first female finisher in the Army Ten-Miler, Oct. 9, 2016. (C.J. Lin/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., Oct. 9, 2016 (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners give people cheering on the sidelines high-fives at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
A runner gives a woman cheering on the sidelines a high-five at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
A runner, spying a friend among the participants, pauses her race to give a quick embrace at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
A runner in red jogs backwards during the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
A dog vies for attention durung the Army Ten Miler on Oct. 9, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
The Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stri)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Runners at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9, 2016. (Meredith Tibbetts/Stars and Stripes)
Eventual race winner Augustus Maiyo (7, at left) leads a group of fellow Army team members across the Potomac and into Washington, D.C., near the two-mile mark of the Army 10 Miler, Oct. 9, 2016. (Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes)
Kelly Calway (11) of West Point, N.Y. leads a group of runners toward the five-mile mark in Washington, D.C. during the Army Ten-Miler, Oct. 9, 2016. Calway was the third female finisher, in a time of 58:56. (Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes)
ARLINGTON, VA. — U.S. Army men swept the top spots of the Army Ten-Miler for a second year in a row, with the win coming as a pleasant surprise to a Fort Carson soldier who was up against some pretty stiff competition.
Sgt. Augustus Maiyo, who has run the race five times before, finally clinched the top spot with a time of 48:20. Maiyo was competing alongside his all-Army teammate, Spc. Paul Chelimo, who won the race last year and was the silver medalist in the 5K event in this summer’s Olympics in Rio.
“I didn’t expect to win it,” said Maiyo, who put on a burst of speed in the final seconds of the race to overtake teammate Lt. Robert Cheseret. “I mean, I was running against Olympians. What do you expect? That makes me happy.”
Chelimo started the race with the team, but did not finish.
"Never do a 10 mile race without any workout it's gonna kill your Ego," Chelimo tweeted after the race.
Cheseret, who won the Army Ten-Miler in 2010, came in second. The runners were facing gusty winds along the course throughout the Washington, D.C. area.
“I thought I was going to have it. I thought I won it because I pulled up a little bit,” Cheseret said. “But then I hit the headwind, slowed down, and Maiyo caught up and he had a good finish.”
Still, he was proud of the team’s accomplishment. Spc. Shadrack Kipchirchir came in third at 48:22.
“We all train together, so whoever wins, everybody is happy at the end,” Cheseret said.
Stephanie Reich, of Frederick, Md., was the first female finisher with a time of 56:29. Perry Shoemaker of Vienna, Va., finished second at 58:16, followed by Army Capt. Kelly Calway, a combatives instructor at West Point, at 58:56.
Calway, who won the Marine Corps Marathon in 2013, was running the race in memory of a fallen soldier who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009.
Capt. Brian “Bubba” Bunting was 29 when he was killed by a bomb that exploded near his vehicle in Kandahar. He was a West Point graduate who was in the same company as Calway’s husband.
“I just think he could’ve been beside me,” said Calway, 32. “And I just wanted to run for him, run for his family, run for his child, keep his memory alive and celebrate the life that he lived.”
Running in honor of Bunting helped Calway power through the headwinds in her first big race after she was only able to run about three miles in February’s Olympic marathon trials because of a stress fracture in her femur that put her on crutches for six weeks.
“I’m out there running a race and it’s hard, but it’s not like combat. It’s not like what he went through,” Calway said. “I’m just keeping it in perspective, when I think it’s getting hard out there, [that] it’s nothing like what he was going through.
“It just is a reminder of our profession and what we do,” she said. “It was really, really humbling for somebody who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”
lin.cj@stripes.com Twitter: @cjlinSS
