A self-described "old woman" and a man who waited for the perfect time to kick past his competitors were first-place winners of a soggy Pittsburgh Marathon on Sunday.

Roaring through rain that fell for virtually the entire race, varying from a drizzle to a moderate downpour, Kipyegon Kirui, a 29-year-old Kenyan who trains in Durham, N.C., was the top men's finisher. His time was 2 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds.

Alena Vinitskaya, a 36-year-old from Belarus who has two children under 5, captured the women's title, doing so in 2:42:33, besting her nearest competitor, Phebe Ko, by more than three minutes.

For navigating the hilly 26.2-mile course faster than the other 5,000 participants who ran the full marathon, Mr. Kirui and Ms. Vinitskaya each won $6,500.

In the men's field, Wilson Chepkwony finished second (2:17:44) and Mahammed Awol was third (2:19:23).

Mr. Kirui took command during the 22nd mile. Until then, Isaac Macharia had led almost from the 7:30 a.m. start on Smallman Street in the Strip District. Mr. Kirui made his move as the race reached Bloomfield for its final stages and never trailed again.

Mr. Macharia ended up fourth and, in a show of how hard he had gone out in those first 22 miles, had to be helped from the finish line by medical personnel.

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As the winner sat in a chair following the race, he snacked on a banana and changed into his leisure shoes with no signs of wear, other than the perspiration streaming down his head.

"Perfect," Mr. Kirui said of the tactic that led him to his first marathon victory. "I was waiting until between [miles] 22 and 24 to go. There were slight elevations and I was confident I was going to catch him."

By the time most of the 16,000 runners in the marathon and half-marathon had crossed the starting line, 21 minutes into the race, a steady rain had begun.

"The rain was great," Mr. Kirui said. "It didn't affect [me]. I liked it a lot."

He had no problem with the rain; women's champion Ms. Vinitskaya had no troubles with a perception that she's getting a bit long in years to win a marathon.

"I'm an old woman," she joked. "It felt good to run with the young women and beat them. I just kept running at my pace and after mile 14 I took the lead and ran the rest of the race by myself."

Prior to 2003, Ms. Vinitskaya won the San Diego marathon four times in five years. She also won the 2008 ING Georgia Marathon in Atlanta.

Two runners with local ties were champions in the half-marathon field.

Ryan Sheehan, a Baldwin High School graduate who ran at St. Francis University in Loretto, won the men's half-marathon with a time of 1:05:13 and Kristin Price was the women's champion (1:17:37).

"Early on, when I showed up, I was thinking I'd go about 1:04," Mr. Sheehan said. "But that was before the rain and the wind. The weather definitely slowed everything out there."

Ms. Price is a 2000 Penn-Trafford High School graduate who lives in Raleigh, N.C., and captured the title in the full marathon last year. She has battled shin and Achilles injuries and running the full marathon was out of the cards this year -- a final decision to participate in the half-marathon didn't come until Tuesday.

"These injuries are killing me," she said. "I'm just glad I got through it."

The elite talent pool for this marathon was modest when measured against other big-city marathons around the country.

It was a chore to lure top-flight runners to Pittsburgh with a top prize for the winning man and woman at $6,500. Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon also was run Sunday, thinning the Pittsburgh field.

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