Race Report by Tammy-Leigh DeMent

“It was a beatuiful day, the sun beat down, I had the radio on, I was drivin…. Yeah runnin’ down a dream…”

One of the best parts of being in this club is car pooling to races! Randy’s daughter had made a CD for Boston and we rocked out to it on the way to the Double Trouble. It was a day Tom Petty could have been thinking of while writing Running Down a Dream….

In typical Ron Horn style, the race was slightly late in starting but we love Ron so much it didn’t matter. Pretzel City Sports always does a top notch job. (French Creek is a beautiful park and as the event is so much fun, not too many people minded). The race started off with an insulting face-off in the beginning – the 15K’ers lined up at the bottom of the hill, the 30K’ers at the top and hurl insults at each other… how fun to verbalize what is often silently said in our heads!

After the usual first 1/4 mile congestion the speedies leap-frogged to the front and the rest of us were left to battle it out for ourselves. This is one of the prettiest courses of Pretzel City Sports’ races. Maybe it is the timing, maybe it is because it starts at 10 a.m. so the runners are only slightly hungover from the night before …Whatever it is, French Creek State Park is a great venue for this race, and one of the few courses where two 9 mile loops seems do-able. There are pretty views of the lake, not so pretty views of people wiping out while trying to look at pretty views of the lake, the forest was lush and green, and the uphills are not as bad as those we normally experience in Ron Horn races. The showers at the end are an extra special and, um, BRACING, treat.

“Success” was the word of the day for the Wanderers!

15K

Noah Schusterman – 1:11.09 – 14 overall, 5th M 30-39
Helen Cheung – 1:14.34 – 21 overall, 1st Female (p.s. the next female was more than 4 minutes behind)
Erik Johnson – 41 overall 1:22.21
Randy Clever – 77 overall, 1:28.18
Corbin Evans – 146 overall, 1:41.18
Rachel Liskey – 221 overall, 1:55.13
Anita Zalewski – 234 overall, 1:57.29
Kelsey Evans – 251 overall, 2:01.21
Tammy Leigh DeMent -254 over all, 2:01. 57 (at 2.01 approached the 30K loop… denied! cut off was 2:00!!! maybe next year I’ll get the lead out!!)
Ken Evans – 259 overall , 2:03.03
Emily Clever – 271 overall, 2:08.47

30K

Cee Heard- 86 over all, 1st in her age group, 3:56.28

To celebrate, Cee and I stopped for ‘ice coffee’ on the way home… and in Cee’s world when I suggested ice coffee I clearly meant cold beer!

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