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Running: Triple Crown available for runners
By Joe Shafran, For The Capital
If you are disappointed that there will no triple crown in horse racing this year, there may be some consolation . There could well be a triple crown in running and the Preakness of this triple will be the Annapolis Ten Miler in August and the “Belmont Stakes” of running will be the Army Ten Miler in Arlington, Virginia at the Pentagon and Washington D.C. I’m recalling all this as I was watching that breathtaking finish in the real Preakness at Pimlico Saturday afternoon.
It may well have been George Banker, the runner, writer and race director from Oxon Hill in Prince Georges’s County who came up with this brilliant triple crown idea and got Washington Running Report to come up with some prize money that starts at $2,000 and will no doubt gather some momentum. His deal is that the winner has to be a local runner, a resident of the United States for at least two years and having won the Cherry Blossom in April, must now win the other two. I talked with George and he tells me he has long felt that many of our good local runners don’t get recognition they deserve in our high profile races and wanted to correct that. The local winner of the Cherry Blossom was Susannah Kvasnicka, 33, of Great Falls Virginia who finished in 57.27, ninth overall, She will be registered in the other two upcoming races. I’ll try to do some research on Susannah and see if she really is the Secretariat type, with the triple crown instinct. You can imagine the pressure she must be under if she chooses to continue. On-line registration for the Annapolis ten miler opens next Wednesday, June 1st at annapolisstriders.org. On- line registration for the Army race is already open on their website armytenmiler.com It’s October 2nd. Banker is the Operations Director of the Army Ten Miler and he providing a little history of that race reminding that back in 1991, a 43 year old woman from Annapolis, Rose Malloy was the master of women, finishing the Army in 1:00:36. not to be confused with a Susan Molloy, who at age 30 in 1995 was first in the Open Women , running the ten miles in 56:20. She’s from Charlottesville. So there you have it folks, the triple crown of running. On your mark.
Speaking of the Preakness, you may know that one part of the week long Baltimore celebration was the Preakness 5k a week ago last Saturday at the Pimlico track that was listed on our calendar. I’m told that close to a thousand were signed up. The track area on Northern Parkway in Baltimore is a huge expanse and the race flier tells us the runners “will race around Old Hilltop, enter the tunnel and then thunder down the stretch at Pimlico, just like Smarty Jones did last year”. I don’t recall the weather on the 14th, but in case of rain, they apparently don’t consider us runners good mudders, so they set up an alternative finish on the infield. I did get to Baltimore to check this out and must say that a race track is a perfect place to do the last mile of a 5 K but at the risk of getting into politics, which I usually stay away from, but hearing that this might be the last Preakness, I have to express a personal opinion. I noted that they have recently constructed ,what appears to be a very permanent and very ornate fence around the property. I would say it’s a good mile and a half or more around the perimeter. It must have cost a fortune. I would have to think that that if the future of this historic event (130 years) is in such doubt, prudent business sense would suggest that a somewhat temporary chain link fence be constructed, not one that would serve for the next hundred years. This is the horserace that attracts the Goodyear Blimp, and this is all coming to an end ? Go take a look at the fence and tell me this is the last Preakness.
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In an earlier column, in which I made mention of seeing the late Pope John Paul II on one of my runs in Washington , D.C. in the fall of 1979, I excused the fact that he may not have been a runner, but how wrong I may have been. Did you see the story earlier this month that he was in fact quite into sports as a young man? He was well into soccer, swimming, kayaking , hiking, and I like to think into running also. He was so highly regarded, that there is a trading card for him that was bought recently by a collector for what a news service said was “more than four figures” but the news service also said that the value was declining and as late as ten days ago the card was up for bid on e-bay.
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Also, in earlier columns, I predicted that some of our well-conditioned local running groups would do very well in major races and I’m pleased to tell you they did. At the April Boston Marathon, the Naval Academy Marathon Club placed 13th as a group among the more than 20,000 who were registered. I had mentioned that the Boston Athletic officials must have wondered what we feed people here in Annapolis to have young runners , listing Annapolis as their hometown, all twenty of them, finishing in under or just over three hours. And also in the last column, I mentioned that the running team of the Anne Arundel County Police Department was to compete in the COPS 50 K Challenge at the U.S. Secret Service Training Facility at Beltsville on Friday the 13th. Corporal Joe Hatcher, the Anne Arundel team captain tells me they did the County proud in this event that attraced some 8,000 runners, all sworn law enforcement officers from around the U.S. in the relay-type run. The record shows that Corporal Hatcher’s runners, he and six other men and three women in the mixed coed division finished first out of 12 teams with an average of 21 minutes for running the 5K segment . The record also shows that Annapolis runner , Nathan Nudelman, in federal law enforcement, had the tenth fastest time of all the thousands of runners in 17:40. This was all part of a week that included the memorial to police who been killed in the line of duty. Among the various events during the week , I’m told that a group of recruits from the Prince Georges’s County Police Academy did a 13 mile half-marathon run from the Ikea store at College Park to the Law Enforcement Memorial, near the Capitol in Washington.
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Running results
Vincent’s( DeBeradinis) Run. 5K Run /Walk, Hillsmere School, Annapolis , Saturday, May 7
1st. Male… Thor Young, 35, 19:21:48
1st Female Clair Saxton, 27, 20:58:08
COPS 50K Challenge, Fri. May,13th, Secret Service Training Facility, Beltsville
Anne Arundel County Police running team finishing 1st. in Mixed Coed Division over
12 other mixed teams from around the United States. Captained by Cpl. A. Joe Hatcher. These are Anne Arundel 5 K times:
1. Chris Ament 18:34
2. Sgt. Eric Scott 18:53
3. Kurt Jestes 20:12
4. Jon Zimmer 20.47
5. Cpl A.Joe Hatcher 20:53
6. Casey Stidham 21:07
7. Michelle Boehmer 21:32
8. Yancey Quigley 22:11
9. Jennifer Grimsley 24:09
10. Donna Dennis 24:17
Running Calendar :
Sat. May 28. Chestertown. 8 A.M The Tea Party 10 K and 5 K run/walk. You have the scenic Chester River and George Washington College. Call 410-928-5964. Still time to register.
Monday, May 30… Salisbury. 3:30 in the afternoon. Smallville Big Cause 5K starting at Perdue Stadium. Call 410-219-3112. Ext.136
Wed. June 1, On-line registration opens for the Annapolis Ten Miler in August. Annapolisstriders.org.
Sat. June 4, Washington D.C. 11th at Consituton on the Mall. Race for the Cure Susan G. Komen event. Visit national raceforthecure.org. If you prefer, you can sign up for Sleep In For the Cure. They will gladly accept your contribution to do research for the Cure of Breast Cancer.
Sun. June 5. Kinder Farm Park, Pasadena, 9 A.M. Arundel Habitat for Humanity 5K Call 410-384-9212
Sat. June 11. Crofton, Crofton Country Club. 8 A.M. Kiwanis/Team Surlis Realtor 10K Challenge 410-451-3998.
Sun. June 19. A.M. Severna Park… Dawson’s Father’s Day 5 miler, #3 in the Annapolis Striders Championship Series. Visit the Striders web site to sign up.
Sat. July 9th. Annapolis. West Annapolis Elementary School. Women’s Distance Festival 5K and the Men’s 5K Run after the Women See the Strider’s web site annapolisstriders.org
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