It was a dark and stormy .... never mind, that's been done. It was a beautiful day when I marked the course about 3:00pm. It had rained earlier to cool things off as I had planned, but as race time approached another storm with a fair amount of lightning arrived, that wasn't part of the plan. Fortunately a gaggle of mostly-patient runners waited for the storm to pass, and we finally got the race underway about twenty minutes late.

Many thanks to the volunteers who waited out the rain and made the race a success. Kathy Klesmitt and Jim Price took care of the water stop and Bill Smitham worked the turnaround. All of them got a little wet and their services were much appreciated. Connie Arnsbrak and Rosalia Murch did their normal expert job with registration. Also noteworthy was the efficiency of our crack finish line crew. Tom Alison, Joe Baird, Joe Sanchez (quartermaster) Mike Vanoni, and myself took care of the timing and scoring and thanks to their expertise, we had the finish results ready before some of the runners returned to the registration area, and we cleared the area before dark.

As usual for this race we were joined by a number of North High School runners and alumni and their coach, Jeff Young. The high schoolers ran unofficially, beginning 2 minutes after the official start. Not surprisingly, Hector and Esmeralda Martinez took first overall for both genders with times of 18:12 and 19:52 respectively. Esmeralda was 6th overall. Hector ran slower than normal, since he was recovering from a 5th place at Georgetown, and tapering (?) for the Leadville 100 next weekend. He is the youngest finisher ever at Leadville.

The fastest master was Keith Johnson in 2nd overall at 18:21, followed by Dave O'Sadnick at 18:31. Dave also had a fast time at Georgetown.

The fastest lady master was Dense Glenn in 16th place at 22:21.

As usual the door prizes were supplied by Great Harvest Bread Co., and were greatly appreciated. These were supplemented by an entry to the El Grito 5K, donated by Bob Cailloutte who had won it at a previous race but will be unable to attend.

Thanks again to all the volunteers, they made it fun to put on the race!