The AotW for August 30th to September 5th is Brandon Doughty of Jefferson High School. Mr. Doughty won the Interstate Classic in a course record time of 15:44, also leading his team to a dominating win. Brandon is a senior and one of the "Big Four" competing for the AAA state title. As his team proved at Knight Night, and again this weekend, they are also in a dead-heat for the AAA team title.
Special hat tip to Jacob Burcham for his course record at GEICO, to Letitia Propst for her victory at GEICO, and to Jason Pyles and Maria Busienei for their victories at the Charleston Distance Run.
-----
I've noticed that the Ogden 20k has changed to a half-marathon, and now the CDR has eliminated prize money and is in discussions to move to the 13.1 distance as well. Whatever the motivations, and I have to be a little disappointed with the loss of history, I think these standardizations presents an interesting opportunity. In the Parkersburg half results, they show the combined times of the Parkersburg and Ogden finishers. For 2010, WV could now have a perfectly spread out half marathon schedule, in the geographical and calendar sense. January - Run to Read in Fairmont, May - Ogden in Wheeling, June - Decker's Creek in Morgantown, August - Sentinel in Parkersburg, September - CDR in Charleston, October - Beckley Half in Beckley and Freedom's Run in Shepardstown, November - Marshall Half in Huntington. Basically every area of population in WV would be covered, spaced out rather evenly over the course of the year.
My thought is that this is a perfect setup for some sort of half marathon series. Maybe total time for a runner's best three races, maybe total runners beat, maybe age-graded total time for best three races, maybe some sort of bonus system for competing in more than the minimum, maybe some sort of cash prize, certainly an award for running every race. At any rate, the mechanics would be up to the race directors. If we sacrifice some of our WV road racing history by standardize into the half marathon distance, maybe we should use this as an opportunity to start a new chapter in that history.
2 comments:
There is a marathon/half-marathon in the eastern panhandle.
http://www.freedomsrun.org/
Also there's a half in Winchester, VA which is very close to the WV boarder.
http://www.battlefield131.com/
Thanks, I did not know about that race. I've updated the post.
Post a Comment