A top pre-race favourite from Kenya, a country which produces long distance runners of world class through a seemingly endless assembly line, expects faster times in this Sunday's Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon due to cooler weather conditions and easier course as compared to last year.

Joseph Kahagu, the 32-year-old marathoner, who is the entrant with the best recorded time in this year's event two hours, seven minutes and 59 seconds which he clocked seven years ago in the Chicago Marathon told during a pre-event press conference that he expected a sub 2:15 winning time this year.

This compared favourably with 2:15.47 clocked by Hendrik Ramaala of South Africa last year, who is absent from the fray this time around.

Citing reasons for this expectation UK-based Elite athleties co-ordinator Ian Ladbrooke said that last year the event was held in February when the temperature was 10 degrees more and the humidity level was also much higher than the expected weather forecast for Sunday.

There were two uphill sections on the route too which has been reduced to one this year, he pointed out as another reason for his optimism that the times clocked by the top runners would be much better this year.

This year's field is much stronger too, Kahagu said, a fact endorsed by Ladbrooke who said he expected pretty good times to be set by the leading runners this year.

Kahagu has come here after winning the Dubai marathon in 2003 clocking 2:09.23 which was a course record and had taken part in the 1996 Pune Marathon at the beginning of his career. He has won marathons in 2003 in Japan [Images] and last year in Madrid.

"In fact I wanted to run in the Mumbai Marathon last year but my manager dissuaded me as I was to run in Madrid soon afterwards," Kahagu said. Asked about the Pune marathon in which he took part, Kahagu described the conditions then as very hot and said he clocked 2:25.

Another top Kenyan marathoner John Mutai, who was fifth in the Mumbai Marathon last year, said he adopted the waiting tactics last year and saw the course and conditions were quite tough.

"Last year I was cautious. I followed everybody and towards the end it was tough and I saw many drop behind," he recalled.

"I have trained quite hard for the event, running 120 kms every week. I saw the great Paul Tegart too training very hard for the coming season, the 37-year-old Mutai said adding that Sunday's race should be a good race.

England's [Images] 34-year-old Ian Fisher, for whom this would be his first ever marathon in Asia, said his training included wearing warm clothes while running to get used to the higher humidity in Mumbai.

Fisher, who had won the 1999 Amsterdam half marathon and was runner up in the 2002 event in Manchester and 2003 Nottingham marathon, said he has mostly trained for the event with cross-country runs."I have run 100 miles a week," he added.