Final Reminder – Boston Send-off Party:
We will again be meeting at the Hunter’s Den, 3517 Old Capitol trail, Wilmington, DE 19808. As always we have this of the last Wednesday evening before the Boston Marathon, this year April 14, from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Weekend highlights:
Tom Jermyn was the top masters runner and second overall in the JoJo D’Occhio Fdn. 5K in 17:46
Theresa Kauffman was the overall female winner of the Prompt and Play 5K in 21:01.
Club members at the Garden Spot Marathon and Half-Marathon:
Austin Gee ran a 2:51:29 to finish fourth overall and 1st in the 20-24 age group. Although he had hoped to run closer to 2:45, he siad that there were “more hills than I thought”. (See account below.) Austin also was part of the winning relay team, the Negative Splits, along with Josh Loren and two other men, which finished in the same time of 2:51:29. Essentially the other members of the relay team acted as pacers for Austin.
Dave McCorquodale (me) finished the marathon in 4:20:45, good enough for third in the 65-69 AG. The first finisher in the AG, who is 67, finished in 3:43:56. Ironically the first 60-64 male ran 4:48:18.
Steve Thorpe ran 5:34:07.
Dirk Sweigart ran 1:34:37 in the half-marathon and was first in the 50-54 AG. His first place finish was made possible because top three male masters finishers were all over 50.
Garden Spot as a race venue: These races are located in New Holland, Pa., a mere 45 to 60 minutes from anywhere in Northern Delaware. The races start and finish at the retirement community of Garden Spot Village, a retirement community where Dirk’s parents live. Many of the residents, including Dirk’s father, volunteered for the race. The races occur in beautiful, rolling, Lancaster county, past dozens of Amish farms.
This course has some unique things to experience: After the initial five miles were closed to traffic, the roads were open to traffic, but it was scarce. In fact the Amish buggies, pulled by horses cantering along, were almost as numerous as the cars. This meant that one had to be alert to dodge the small brown mounds left on the road. Occasionally one was greeted by the pungent aromas from where cattle were gathered or from fields with freshly spread manure.
The course featured one major hill, crested twice at mile 5 and mile 22. From the course map, it appeared that in between there weren’t many hills, but course maps are deceptive. In fact, the course constantly rolled with only a few miles of relative flat areas. While I was trying to maintain a pace about 9:30, going downhill from the first crest was such a drop that I ran an 8:36 mile. I commented to the guy next to me that I was going to pay for that on the way back. Sure enough on the equivalent mile returning, I clocked a 12:41 which included several minutes where the slope was too steep to run anymore and I walked.
Then there was the wind. Starting at 12 mph, it picked up after the first hour to constant speeds of 15 mph with gusts of 23 mph. After passing the half-marathon turnaround at about seven and a half miles, suddenly it seemed the runners were more exposed to the wind and constantly running into it for the next seven miles. Then we had the wind at our backs until mile 24 when again we had to run the last two miles into a headwind.
The volunteers were friendly; Good water, Gatorade and gel stops; enough food at the end. I highly recommend this venue as long as you aren’t looking for a PR. The races and relay were capped at a total of 1,100 and are probably going to be limited to that number in the future. Next year this race will occur two weeks earlier because of some construction going on in the area.
LDAF Half Marathon
Results of club members in the LDAF Half-Marathon which took place in Lewes on Sunday:
Adam Shilling 1:30:27 2nd 35-39
Wes Stafford 1:35:57 2nd 45-49
Carole Feole 1:42:43 1st 50-54