LAYTON READY FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR
When Karyn Layton of Rockaway decides to go after a goal, she stays focused. Last year, Layton decided to focus on placing well in the USATF-NJ New Balance grand prix. If placing third woman overall and first in the 34 and under division is placing well, then you would have to agree that she met her goal.
Like any runner who rises to the top, Layton has had to work at achieving her goal. On weekday mornings she is out on the road by twenty after five. It’s a schedule she maintains year round. In the spring and summer she also includes an evening track work-out.
Layton grew up in Connecticut and ran on the high school cross country team, beginning with her junior year. She continued with cross country at Quinnipiac University. Since the school had no track team Layton kept on training through the spring and summer on her own.
“In the fall, when we started our cross country season, it was always cool because I would be the only one who stayed in shape over the summertime,” said Layton. “I’d start out the year really well.”
Once out of school Layton followed her family, which had moved by that time, to Denville and she started racing locally in 1993.
Layton loves 5K’s but misses the Run for the Roses 10K that used to take place in Denville every June.
“I really liked the Run For the Roses,” she said. “It went right by my parents house and the neighbors would be out and they would all cheer for me.”
Layton would have appreciated those cheers when she ran the Liberty Waterfront Half Marathon last fall, a race she knew she needed to run to maximize her points in the grand prix.
“I wanted to see if I could do it (the grand prix). You need to get the right combination of races,” said Layton. “Category Three is the hardest to fill.”
The loss of the Midland Run 15K, that has been a mainstay on the championship schedule, is forcing Layton to run in another race she might not have otherwise chosen.
“I’m doing the Newark Distance Classic because there is no Midland,” she said.
Layton may not find the Newark race, with it’s challenging hills, as difficult as others find it. Last year she trained for and ran in the Mt. Washington hill climb in New Hampshire and loved it. Layton enlisted the help of her friends when she began training for the race.
“We tried to look for the steepest hills,” said one of those friends, Will DeRoberts of Boonton.
A wag in the group nicknamed one of those hills Jacob’s Ladder, for the road of the same name, off Green Pond Road in Rockaway.
“It’s a pretty steep hill, said DeRoberts. “Just getting there from Rockaway Valley is quite a run. It’s so steep that when bicyclist go down it they serpentine it. They don’t go straight down.”
“I felt fine. It is such a blast,” said Layton, after the race. “It sounds like it’s crazy if you think of an 11 percent average for seven point-six- miles and it sounds nuts. You go up and you see the trees thin out and all of a sudden you are above the tree line. Around the corner there are no more trees. I hope to do it again if I get in the lottery.”
DeRoberts is still training with Layton and can attest to her dedication, even in the face of all manner of weather.
“I can expect an email every Friday, asking me to do something with her on Saturday,” said DeRoberts. “Any kind of weather. No mater rain, snow, pouring rain. It doesn’t matter.
The Striders have a group run every Sunday that begins on Morris Avenue off Green Pond Road in Rockaway. Layton never misses, except for when races keep her from it.
“She’ll be sitting in her car and at nine o’clock she will start running by herself if no one shows up,” said DeRoberts. “If it’s rain, she doesn’t care. If it’s pouring she doesn’t care.”
“If I run long or hard on Saturday,” he said. “I’ll take Sunday off, but she’ll run both days.”
“Her big breakthrough was when she joined the Striders and started running with us,” said DeRoberts. “She was always running alone. When she hooked up with the fastest runners (in the club) there was a marked improvement.”
Layton runs 5K’s in the range of 19 and a half to just under twenty minutes. She’ll be running the Run for Rachel 5K in Livingston this April where last year she finished in 19:29. At the Cherry Blossom Run 10K in Newark, that this year is the Open Women’s championship, she finished in 41:22 and at the Liberty Waterfront half marathon, the race she really did not want to run last September, she finished in a respectable 1:35:35.
It’s a sure bet that when Layton sets her mind to a goal she will reach it. Look for her again to rise to the top in 2006.
Published on February 19, 2006 in the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey
Copyright Madeline Bost, 2006
