Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia wins 4th elite women’s Bolder Boulder title

The Ethiopian won her fourth title Monday well ahead of the rest of the field, finishing in 32 minutes, 21.63 seconds. She also won in 2009, 2010 and 2012 and was the runner-up in 2011. Only Portugal’s Rosa Mota has more career Bolder Boulder victories with five.

Even with temperatures in the high 60s, and even with a hard early pace from Deena Kastor, Daska felt the pace was too slow. So she took off down the left side of a long straightaway before the first mile while the rest of the women followed the inside curve of the road.

The champion “did good training and felt the pace was easy at the beginning,” Daska said through a translator.

That set the tone: If you want to win, prepare for bold moves and a long grind over the scorching pavement of this rolling, high-altitude course.

Shalane Flanagan, who most recently finished as the top American in the Boston Marathon, tried in vain to move with her. But the gap only grew with each passing mile — five seconds at mile one, then nine at two miles, 16, 22, 28 — until the finish: 43.48 seconds. Flanagan and Daska ran nearly the entire race solo.

“I think she knew I probably didn’t have the adaptation to altitude, so I was a little cautious, even though that felt really fast for me,” Flanagan said. “So I tried to be as cautious as possible but not give away the race. I didn’t want to hand it to her. But I tried to keep her within distance to see if she faltered and misjudged herself.”

About halfway through the race, Flanagan realized Daska wasn’t coming back.

“At that point, the competitor in me — it was hard to let that go,” she said. “But I was worried about the team aspect, and I was wanting to safely hold second for my team.”

With Kastor’s fourth-place finish and Sara Hall’s 16th-place finish — a race Hall described as the most challenging she had ever run — the American women’s Red team finished third behind Ethiopia and Kenya.