Sometimes you don’t need a big race to get a huge performance. The Lincoln Park Beavertown 5K on Saturday had only 152 finishers. But the race had Rob Albano of Mahwah who continued to rack up PR’s with his 14:26.29 finish. Albano was over three minutes ahead of second place.
If Richard Luettchau of Bridgewater had chosen another race to run on Saturday, Elena Rozhko of Morristown could have been the overall winner of the race. The 46-year-old finished the Action For Distraction Skeleton 5K trail run in 19:54, well behind Luettchau’s 17:04 but ahead of 109 other finishers.
If you saw this column this past Friday, you know that after writing that there was only the Westfield five miler on November 30th, I discovered that there were two Category Two grand prix races – the Up, Up and Away 5 mile race at the Blairstown Airport, and the Paramus 10K.
I don’t think I can take credit for Justin Scheid and Karen Auteri being at the race. They probably knew it was there. The duo had no trouble winning their respective races; Scheid in 28:06 and Auteri in 32:04. The race is not billed as a trail race, but it starts on grass and takes runners onto the Paulinskill Trail and when not on the trail it takes runners up some very challenging hills.
Auteri finished in seventh place overall and Laura DeLea, the fast 54-year-old from Sparta was the next woman in 35:16 and eleventh overall
Rufino Mendez choose the Paramus 10K on Sunday for his non-championship Category Two race. He finished second to Ross McGraw from New York and surely will score near 500 points. Mendez has to be happy with his placement, after his catch-up performance at the 8km cross country race last month
Misa Tamura of Ridgewood has been out with an injury until now. I don’t know if the Paramus 5K was her first race back, but did she ever hit it! She is 54 years old and her 19:01 age graded at 90.76% PLP. Now that’s a nice return after a lay-off.
Forty-five-year-old Rait Pallo won the Seaside Half Marathon in 1:19:23 on Sunday.
This review looked at race results from www.CompuScore.com, www.BestRace.com, www.splitsecondracing.net. and www.tristatetiming.com to find remarkable or interesting performances.
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