The Manchester Running Company club team was out in full force at the Hartford Marathon, Half Marathon and 5k last weekend along with a pair of runners taking on the Chicago Marathon. Over 50 club runners crossed the finish in Hartford, with many more volunteering, spectating, and a pair of MRC Masters records even fell on a beautiful day in Hartford.
Kevin Vallez highlighted the men's masters team with an impressive 2:48:00 showing in the marathon, setting the club record for the masters division and establishing a new personal best. Not to be outdone, Adam Bulewich grabbed the masters record in the half marathon with a time of 1:16:57 to win his age group. Other highlights include Cathryn King running in her first marathon to a 4:29:18 finish along with Beth Gemmell making her debut in 4:54:17. Other marathon entries included Morgan Kennedy (3:05:12 Pacer), Suresh Jatti (3:09:10 Pacer), Linda Yamamoto 3:17:56, Katie Filipetti 3:36:19, Tony Torsiello 3:48:58, Ito Pizarro 3:53:10, Kevin Ehrlich 3:55:53, Kevin Freyer 4:14:58 and Diana Cohen 5:08:15.
In the half marathon, personal bests were set by Shizhong Yang (1:19), Briana Demers (1:29), David Fusfeld (1:29), Tricky Tanksley (1:29), Tom Soisson (1:36), Jackie Ofria (1:37) and Rich Lindahl in 1:37. The MRC crew made up over 30 runners in the field: Brian Murray 1:17:32, Steve Sadler 1:24:44, Tim Goric 1:25:18, Anne Leonard-Blake 1:26:30, Chris McCormack 1:29:11, Nick Ferron 1:29:18, Kacey Busque 1:29:25, Mike Riordan 1:32:15, Kenneth Landry 1:36:24, Melissa Emmerich 1:37:17, Nicole Leblanc 1:39:05, Michaela Logue 1:42:41, Laura Nelson 1:43:21, Wendy Davis 1:44:18, Sarah Ferrero 1:47:23, Kelly Kenney 1:51:06, Bob Lapointe 1:51:40, Peter Briggeman 1:54:36, Alison Abrams 1:55:00, Michelle Russi 1:59:54, Gary Frye 2:01:17, Erin Keller 2:05:33, Nichole Bickley 2:06:52, Erin Ferraro 2:08:12, Candice Hendrix 2:19:22, and Brett-Rae Glotzer 2:45:40.
In the 5k at Hartford John Busque came up just three seconds shy of the MRC record with an insanely fast 14:56 to finish second place overall in the field of 1900 runners; Dani Kennedy won her age group in 21:34.
Matt Conyers and Dan Uriano traveled to the Chicago Marathon where they joined 40,000 friends in the Windy City. Uriano ran 2:44:45 while Conyers crossed the line in 3:13:50.