Syracuse Festival of Races 2014

Do you ever wonder why you picked such a hard hobby? Yeah, me too.

Sunday was the Syracuse Festival of Races which once again served as the USA Masters 5 km Championships. Roadkill took a masters team, 2 open runners and poor unattached Derrick Jones who is still serving his time out for having run with GVH.

The Syracuse Festival of Races is in it’s 21st year, and has for many years served as the USATF National Masters 5k Championship. A quick glance through the results shows finishers from: California, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, Maryland, Florida and many more. If you ever start feeling a bit cocky about dominating your age-group I recommend heading out to this race for a reality check, but only if you’re over 40, the open competition is actually pretty average.

It was a morning of personal records. The flat course, great competition and very good (although slightly breezy) weather propelled 4 of us to certified course Personal Records. Matt (16:17) and I (16:14) have both run faster but never on a certified course, and we both do most of road racing on certified courses so we have a big sample size. Ashlie (21:18 )and Josh Williams (17:36) both ran PR’s as well, certified or otherwise. Derrick continues to cut time from his recent 5k results and finished with a season best 16:24, while Marcus Gage (17:51) and Jim Werven (19:57) had great Roadkill masters team debuts.

Aside from the individual competition the race was also a team competition. Not having Derrick cost us a top 3 finish but we still ran a solid average time of 17:14 and beat the two other clubs in the Niagara region.

1. 47:47 ATLANTA TRACK CLUB ( 15:56)

1 15:40 Chad Newton 44 Pisgah Forest NC
2 15:50 Kristian Blaich 48 Decatur GA
3 16:17 Matthew Whitis 46 Tucker GA
4 ( 16:39) Steve Wilcox 43 Cumming GA

2. 49:38 GARMIN RUNNERS ( 16:33)

1 16:21 Brian Crowley 49 Hillsborough NJ
2 16:27 Mark Zamek 51 Lavellette NJ
3 16:50 Mark Williams 41 Columbia NJ
4 ( 16:55) Gary Rosenberg 43 Morristown NJ
5 ( 19:44) Bill Bosmann 64 Rockaway NJ

3. 50:30 WILLOW STREET AC ( 16:50)

1 16:37 Robert Irwin 41 Guilderland NY
2 16:56 John Stadtlander 49 Clifton Park NY
3 16:57 Volker Burkowski 43 Gansevoort NY
4 ( 17:01) Derrick Staley 55 Ballston Lake NY
5 ( 17:13) Frank Horn 44 Albany NY

4. 51:41 ROADKILL RACING ( 17:14)

1 16:14 Joshua Perks 40 Fairport NY
2 17:36 Joshua Williams 40 Geneseo NY
3 17:51 Marcus Gage 42 Palmyra NY
4 ( 19:57) Jim Werven 48 West Henrietta NY

5. 52:41 GENESEE VALLEY HARRIERS ( 17:34)

1 16:41 Mike Nier 49 Rochester NY
2 17:48 Scott Bickham 48 Corning NY
3 18:12 Carl Johnston 49 Pittsford NY
4 ( 19:24) Gary Radford 57 Cicero NY
5 ( 20:25) Bill Beyerbach 59 Rochester NY

6. 54:53 SYRACUSE TRACK CLUB ( 18:18)

1 17:15 Richard Cohen 43 Utica NY
2 18:21 Javier Martinez 43 Baldwinsville NY
3 19:17 Dennis Delaney 50 Syracuse NY

In non-5K related news Kenny Goodfellow ran another in a series of stellar marathons. While we were zipping up and down the streets in Syracuse, Kenny was grinding away through the Southern Tier taking 3rd place in the Wineglass Marathon. His time of 2:33:11 was 2 minutes off his PR, but running into a headwind for 26.2 miles will do that to a man.

Also racing Wineglass was Joe Haungs who finished 4th in the 50+ category with a blazing 3:19:30, 5 minutes faster than he ran at the Rochester Marathon a few weeks ago.

Wineglass Marathon Results

USATF Men’s National 5k Championship Team Results

Syracuse Festival of Races Overall Men’s Results

Syracuse Festival of Races Overall Women’s Results