Rotary 5K & Quarter Mile Kids Run

Winchester, VA, March 31, 2007

Race Report

With a record turnout, terrific weather, and the closest men's finish in the race's history, it's hard to imagine how the eighth annual Rotary 5K & Quarter Mile Kids Run could've gone any better! 96 runners turned up at Winchester's Jim Barnett Park on the morning of Saturday 31 March to take on the rolling 5K (3.1 mile) route, looping around the park and through the nearby campus of Shenandoah University under mostly sunny skies. Race director Chris Northrup and various volunteers from the Winchester Rotary Club and the Shenandoah Valley Runners did their best to ensure a smoothly run event. Thanks to entry fees and sponsor donations, the Rotary Club was rewarded with a nice chunk of change to help with their charitable works.

Running races of this modest size very rarely go down to the wire, and until this year the event's smallest margin of victory had been fifteen seconds, an eternity in a road race. But this year's event ended up with a final dash to the finish between two-time Rotary 5K champ Jake Green, 22, and Rotary 5K newcomer Kevin Shirk, 27. The two had most recently squared off at January's SVR Treasure Hunt race in Berryville, with Green winning that one handily. Shirk provided more of a challenge this time out, coming from behind for a late push to try and catch Green with the finish line in sight. But Green was able to hold him off to win his third Rotary 5K in 16:02, just a step or two ahead of Shirk (credited with a 16:03 finish). Their performances were the third and fourth fastest in the event's history.

Green's twin brother Eli, no slouch himself, was in the running for the third overall award, but he was outrun by James Wood High School junior Josh Wilson. The 17-year-old covered the course in exactly seventeen minutes. Eli followed nine seconds later, improving on his previous Rotary 5K result (from 2004) by a minute twenty. Handley High School senior Clint Schiavone finished fifth in 17:28 (beating out your author in the process, consarnit!). Wilson and Schiavone were the first of many high schoolers to finish the race, with the James Wood Colonels being particularly well-represented.

The 33-runner women's field included two returning champions in Johanna Scott, 28, and Laura Nelson, 41. Scott had won the 2004 race under the last name of Biola, while Nelson had taken the next two Rotary 5K victories. Scott would prove the fastest this day, foiling Nelson's attempt at a three-peat with a 19:54 performance. Nelson wound up taking third place in 20:44, twelve seconds behind Sarah Krycinski, 26, coach of the Liberty High School cross-country team three hours to the south in Bedford, Virginia. Finishing fourth in 21:27 was 12-year-old Brittany Pollard, who continues to impress after her recent overall win of the SVR's eight-race Winter Series. Crystal Printz, 15, a sophomore at James Wood, rounded out the top five in 22:01.

The Rotary 5K also offers awards to the top three Masters finishers among the guys and gals aged 40 and up. 41-year-old Raymond Bollock, making his sixth Rotary 5K appearance, earned the men's nod with an 18:46 finish. The race for Masters runner-up wound up being as tight as the Green-Shirk duel, as 42-year-old Masaki Ito of Falls Church just fell short of catching Winchester's Bill Blackstone, 40. Both strode across the line under the nineteen minute mark, with Stafford's Dan Tarr following a few seconds behind them. On the women's side, Nelson's third overall finish left the top female Masters prize open for Leesburg's Beth Alwin, 43, who ran a 26:22. Ellie Hamilton set a new event record for the 55-59 age group with her 28:33 finish, good for second Masters. Fellow Winchester-ite Lynne Schoonover, 44, grabbed the third award in 33:35.

This year's race saw fifty-six runners participating in their first Rotary 5K. Twelve of the forty returning Rotary 5K veterans have run the race at least five times. Of the twenty-one runners who ran both the 2006 and 2007 races, Inwood's Mark Peters showed the most improvement, dropping over four minutes off of his previous effort for a 23:15 finish. Four-time finisher Stephen Armstrong also had an excellent race, posting his best Rotary finish ever in 23:41, a 1:12 improvement from 2006. And in a quirky bit of trivia, your author hesitantly notes the that he, the race's only eight-time finisher, has the highly unlikely distinction of having improved on his previous year's performance every single year. (Don't ask me how that happened!)

After the final 5Ker crossed the finish line, a gaggle of about twenty-five youngsters took part in the quarter mile children's fun run, heading out and back along the last bit of the 5K course. No results were kept, so we're not sure who finished first. But all were cheered on by the folks gathered around the finish line, and most of the youngsters appeared to have had a good time!

Thanks are owed to the Winchester Parks & Recreation Department and the Winchester Police for their continued assistance with the race, and plaudits must also be directed towards results figure-outer Neal Riemenschneider and SVR volunteers Myron Kremer and Glenn Luttrell. Chipping in on the financial side were the following sponsors: Burkholder/Stallard Financial Strategies Group of Wachovia Securities; Courtyard Marriott; Edward Jones; orthodontists Goodloe, DeArment, & Lill; H.N. Funkhouser Co.; HandyMart; Master Media Group; Northrup Consulting; Philip S. Griffin II, P.C.; the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation; Virginia Property Group Inc.; and Winchester Imaging. And thanks most of all to the race's participants, who helped make this the most successful Rotary 5K yet. Hopefully we'll see another big crowd next year for the ninth running of the race, most likely on Saturday 29 March 2008!