BOSTON (AP) – Boston Marathon winner Robert Cheruiyot found something good in the foul weather.

Although a cold headwind slowed his pace, the rain may have actually helped, he said.

“Shoes were filled with water – but wet shoes sometimes are good because you don’t get the blisters. Sometimes when it rains it helps you because it acts like a radiator, it cools the body,” Cheruiyot said in Kiswahili, the most widely spoken single language in Africa.

“But what was bad was the wind because as you run, your muscles begin to ache, especially the hands,” he said.

Cheruiyot said the wind may have robbed him of a chance to break the course record again and win a $25,000 bonus.

Riding to victory

Masazumi Soejima won his first Boston Marathon men’s wheelchair race on Monday and denied six-time winner Ernst Van Dyk a record-tying seventh straight title.

Soejima, 36, of Japan, took the lead for good at the 4-mile mark and steadily pulled away, winning in 1 hour, 29 minutes, 16 seconds.

Krige Schabort was second in 1:36.27, with Van Dyk falling back to third in 1:37.10.

Soejima is a two-time winner of the Honolulu Marathon.

Van Dyk, 34, the course record holder at 1:18.27, was trying to match Jean Driscoll’s record of seven consecutive wins. Driscoll won the women’s wheelchair race from 1990-96, and won her eighth Boston in 2000.

Wakako Tsuchida, of Japan, who won in 1:53.30. Amanda McGrory, of Champaign, Ill., was second in 1:58.01. Third went to Sandra Graf of Switzerland.

Wrong song

Lidiya Grigoryeva didn’t notice organizers of the Boston Marathon were playing the wrong Russian national anthem as she wore the winner’s olive wreath and accepted the victor’s trophy.

But Russians in Boston watching the race – and others watching on television – were horrified to hear the wrong anthem for the second time since another Russian woman won in 2003.

“This, once again, shows how America does not understand the rest of the world,” said an Oleg Kotlyarevsky, a Russian magazine reporter. “When presidents arrive, they have the anthem. It’s OK. But when athletes win, it is the wrong anthem.”

Boston Athletics Association officials didn’t realize they had played the national anthem used only between 1996-2000.

“If we did, then that’s a mistake on our part and we are sorry,” spokesman Jack Fleming said.

Russia reverted to the Soviet-era melody in 2000, but replaced the words with new lyrics written by Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov – the same person who wrote the lyrics to the old Soviet anthem.

Grigoryeva, speaking through a translator, indicated that she was too caught up in the moment to notice.

No such problem for men’s winner Robert Cheruiyot. The Kenyan anthem gets plenty of airplay in Copley Square; Kenyans have won 15 of the last 17 men’s races, and he’s won three by himself.

“Our national anthem is something that … you know, it reminds me about a lot of (good) things,” he said smiling broadly.

Favorite shirt

John Hand started his 21st Boston Marathon and expected smaller crowds along the route because of the weather.

Despite forecasts that raised fears of widespread hypothermia, organizers were pleased early tallies showed just the usual aches and pains.

“I think things are going very well. Better than expected,” medical coordinator Chris Troyanos said shortly after elite runners crossed the finishing line.

The 58-year-old Hand recalled a rainy Marathon day more than a decade ago when he had underdressed and was prepared to drop out as he got to Heartbreak Hill. He saw a sweat shirt on the ground and asked someone if he could take it.

Instead, a man took off his parka and gave him the warm, dry polyester sweat shirt he had on underneath.

Hand put it on and finished the race, without getting the name of the stranger who had literally given him the shirt off his back.

He wore it again Monday, when he finished in 5:22.17.

“I broke it out today,” he said. “Maybe it will bring me good luck.”