Where did the sun go on Sunday? Brrr. It was a chilly day for the Giralda Farms racers.
I was a spectator yesterday and that gave me a perspective that I wouldn’t have as a racer. The 10K was scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. When it is as cold and sun-less as it was at ten o’clock. runners appreciate an on-time start. They’ve done their warm up with extra clothes on, and then when it is race time, those extras are off and bare skin is exposed to the chilly air.
Did the race go off on-time? No, and for a very good reason. There were runners still in the road where the racers were waiting for the start. Why were these people not in place behind the starting line? They were not some inconsiderates unmindful of their chilled cohorts. No, they had been in the porta-potty line and they were the end-of-the-liners who had hurried as best they could and then ran to the start. Even if the race officials had wanted to get the race underway on time, they couldn’t because those porta-potty customers kept appearing on the very road that was the race course. There was nothing that they could do to stop them, short of, well, stopping them.
The race started maybe nine or ten minutes past ten. When it did the cold runners had their chance to warm up fast – charging up Dodge Drive.
Rob Albano, who has been winning all his 5k’s in under 15 minutes this season went for the lead early. But this was no hometown race and he was immediately tagged in racing’s version of “It”. Two members of the Garden State Track Club were dogging him like a border collie. I cannot say who the two were, but I do know that Eric Holt of Carmel NY was one of the two. It is possible that the other was Nicholas Filippazzo of Valley Stream NY. Albano kept himself 10 meters in front of Holt, he said after the race, until the last mile. That’s when Holt put the hammer down and Albano was not able to fend Holt off.
Holt finished in 30:23 and Albano in 30:34. Filippazzo was next in 30:58. The top women were Christina Rutkowski of Middletown in 37:38, Meaghan Driscoll of Glen Gardner in 38:06 and Karen Auteri of Belvidere in 38:31.
Dave Slavinski of Point Pleasant was the first masters man to finish. His time of 33:56 at age 48 put him at the top of the age grading at 87:03%, with Reno Stirrat, 65, second age grading at 85.99% and Gary Leaman, 60, of Hardwick third with his 38:46 age graded at 84.58%.
The 5K was interesting in that the Garden State Track Club New Balance women seemed to have all entered the shorter race. That may be an exaggeration but there was a sea of yellow singlets in the front. Emily Rosario of Brooklyn was first in 18:49 while Collin Frost of Randolph won the race outright in 16:25.
For complete results go to www.compuscore.com
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