PRESIDENT'S CUP NIGHT RACE WILL BRING THE ELITE RUNNERS
Tomorrow night’s President’s Cup Night Race 5K in Millburn, hosting the Open Men’s 5K championship brings to an end the USATF-NJ spring championship season.
In 2005 the race had 1,379 officially scored finishers. As happens in computer-chip timed races, some runners will cross the finish line sans their chip, so the number of runners on the streets of Millburn will exceed that number.
Just for fun I looked back at the 1996 race. Only 959 runners finished that year. Joe McVeigh, then 32 years old won the race in 15:01. In 2005 four men finished in under 15 minutes, lead in by Stephen Ondieki whose time was 14:51.
Only one runner, Carlos Martin of Kearny finished in the top ten in both years. As a 27 year old in 1996, Martin finished 7th in 15:34. Last year he finished eighth but with a faster time of 15:19.
The President’s Cup will do that. Folks sometimes wonder if the course is short somehow, but it has been accurately measured. It is just plain fast. But how can it be so fast when you must climb that hill on Millburn Avenue? Twice!
I believe it is the competition. In what other race do you have so many competitive people running along side you? At the President’s Cup you are racing throughout the race. You are never alone. There are too many people. You are always stalking the runners ahead of you. You are always aware that you are also being stalked. The race is grand finale of the spring season and many people have pointed their training toward it.
Injured runners do themselves a disservice by staying home when they cannot race. This is the best spectator course and the elite runners give you a show you don’t want to miss. A lead pack always develops right from the start on Essex Street, and if you scurry one short block over to Millburn Avenue after the start, you will see the leaders coming by. You can watch the field a little while longer as they head up the Millburn Avenue hill for the first time.
Then scurry back over to Essex to see them once again. By then they will have gone through their first mile and a quarter and some men will have dropped off.
Now you will have little longer to watch the rest of the field because the course now leads them out of town to Millburn High School for the turn around.
They will be at about two and three quarters mile when they go past your post on Millburn for their second climb up the hill. When they come back down Essex it will be for the final time and they will be hammering for the finish. You can not beat it for excitement.
OPEN MEN’S TEAMS WILL ALL BE AT MILLBURN
Because this is an Open Men’s championship all of the clubs put out their best on their A teams and then send in their masters men to compete on B, C, and in some cases, D teams. This leads to a lopsided number of teams, many of them with no open men at all on the roster, making for competitions within a competition. In 2005 nineteen teams competed, representing eleven clubs.
Up front of course were the serious competitors. Mizuno’s Runner’s High placed first in 1:16:33 (first five men’s times) with Running Company in second with 1:17:44. Fleet Feet with 1:20:24 was third. Sneaker Factory was fourth and Morris County Striders finished in fifth.
After one race for the Open Men, the Newark Distance Classic 20K, Fleet Feet has the lead in the Liberty Waterfront Team Grand Prix, with the Running Company second and Sneaker Factory third. Mizuno’s Runner’s High is sure to be a factor in the President’s Cup race, but their men’s team may only play the role of spoiler tomorrow night. Indeed, it was the only race in which they competed in 2005.
Packet pickup begins at Charlie Brown’s Restaurant on Essex Street at 6:30 p.m. Plan to arrive early to pick up your chip and souvenir shirt to avoid the crowds. Plan to stay for the post race refreshments courtesy of Charlie Brown’s and Samuel Adams beer.
CORRECTION: In last Sunday’s column I stated that at the Merry Heart 5K on June 5th in Succasunna, Team Sikora, with race winner Matt Hannay, had won the club coed team division. First printout of the results had Team Sikora as the winning team, but the inclusion of a missing member from the Morris County Strider team moved that team into first place.
Ali Caruana set the new women’s course record of 17:15. The old record of 18:07 was set by Jeanne Pare of Mendham in 2003. That information was not included in the story.
Published in the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey, on Sunday, June 18, 2006
Copyright, MADELINE BOST, 2006
