May 2002 Newsletter

The Sweet Smell of Skunk Cabbages

Thanks to RD Yvette de Boer and Co., we had another very successful Skunk Cabbage Classic on April. Yvette had a nasty case of the flu, but kept plugging away at every detail.

The race takes a huge amount of volunteers, and thanks to each and every one - too numerous to mention here by name.

But, as a personal note, I'd like to highlight two of those volunteer forces: The Ithaca United Track Club showed up in full force, and worked all day at the main aid station that served both races for hours. The kids and supervising adults were full of energy and good cheer.

Also, in the good neighbor department, Wineglass RC prez and still a force in the Wineglass Marathon, Bill Taylor showed up first thing in the morning and worked all day doing numerous chores for us like working race day registration, calling splits at the 10K turnaround and rotating around the course to see if all was well in the cabbage patch.

In related news, I tabulated the USATF national age group ranking performances for both the 10K and the half marathon. It was clearly ladies day at the races, with only one lonely teenaged male achieving ranking honors among a bevy of "older" women. Congrats to the following ranked all-stars, and their age divisions and times-The rankings are on their way to the Road Running Information Center!

Half Marathon: Charlene Lyford, F35-39, 1:24:40; Aaron Heltsley, age 13, 1:25:29.

10K: Shirley Woodford, F45-49, 41:31; Coreen Steinbach, F50-54, 43:28; Margret Betz, F65-59, 46:40 (*Betz missed the single-age AR by 22 seconds); Lennie Tucker, F60-64, 49:58. And a note to Betsy Sims: You were 2 months shy of a new age group national ranking!

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