The Manchester Running Company women's club team had a year for the record books in 2017. The team won both the Open and Masters USATF-CT Road Racing Grand Prix and never finished outside the three in a team competition.
The club's open team won the Middletown Half Marathon, Spring Street Mile and Litchfield Hills Road Race, took second at the WPLR 5k, Sea Legs Shuffle 10-miler, Old Wethersfield 10k and New Haven Road Race and took third at the Delaney Dash in May. The MRC ladies took the team title by just four points over SoundRunner.
The masters team started the year with a second place finish at the WPLR 5k and the Delaney Dash before getting hot and going on a five-race win streak to finish out the year. Despite not having a team for the Middletown Half, the MRC team was still able to win the series by one point over Mohegan Striders.
Individually, Brianna Demers took down team records in the 10k, 10-Mile and marathon distances while Mary Schubert established a 50k road record for the club. Kathleen Shaw re-wrote five of her own records in the masters divsion including the 4-mile, 5-mile, 10k, Manchester Road Race, 10-mile and 20k while Amanda Rossolimo ran an 18:35 5k to secure that record.
The roads were a team effort with over 20 women competing in at least one race on the USATF-CT series this season!
Those runners include:
Brianna Demers
Melissa Stellato
Ashley Gurzler
Laura Tignonsini
Tricky Tanksley
Kathleen Shaw
Jackie Ofria
Amy Heffernan
Haley Hesse
Stacy Mowry
Sarah Ferrero
Shelley Kay
Melissa Emmerich
Amira Lerario
Linda Yamamoto
Beth Gemmell
Jessica Willis
Kathy King
Shannon Kievman
Ariana Pike
Erin Keller