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The Stickman's Tandems 5K
8 Feb 03 - Strasburg, VA |
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| These links lead to pages outside of the SVR Web site, and are here just for fun. The club bears no responsibility for the content of the linked pages! |
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If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
| 1. | dogwood | 10 |
| 2. | redwood | 5.3 |
| 3. | ent; Joshua; maple; oak; willow | 4 |
| 8. | sequoia | 3.3 |
| 9. | apple | 3 |
| 10. | cherry; gum; palm | 2 |
| 13. | poison sumac | 1.3 |
| 14. | banana; birch; cedar; hickory; persimmon; cheeseburger; English walnut; magnolia; money; mountain laurel; olive; peach; shady; "the one dogs pee on!" | 1 |
| x | no answer | 12 |
This week's poll question, one of the worst television interview questions of all time, was posed to actress Katharine Hepburn by Barbara Walters in 1981. Hepburn first said, "I'm like an old tree," prompting Walters' famous question. According to one Web site we found, the long-forgotten answer from Hepburn was: "I would want to be a willow. For the mighty oak breaks in two when it encounters a storm, and the willow can bend to the ground and rise again in times of trouble."
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Found after the race: A black men's Campmor vest, size medium! Race director Mark Stickley models the vest in the photo above (click on the photo for a larger view). If the vest is yours, send an e-mail to Mark or stop by his running store in Winchester, the Runner's Retreat on the Old Town Mall. |
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Lining up for the start on a beautiful morning
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Mother Nature continued to toy with the 2002-2003 SVR Winter Series by dumping snow on the Shenandoah Valley in the days both our first and second attempts at hosting the Stickman's Tandems 5K! The race was originally scheduled for Saturday 1 February, but with slippery snow covering the unpaved sections of the course, we made a last-minute decision to postpone the race until Saturday 8 February. (We've posted more details about the postponement in a separate article and photo spread.) Snow fell again during the intervening week, but this time plenty of melting took place on the day before the rescheduled race. The Tandems 5K would be held, one way or another!
Having been caught unprepared on 1 February, we had worked out an alternate course on paved roads for 8 February-- but aside from a few
Race director Mark Stickley
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stray patches of ice plus snow on the brief trail section, our original course (used every year since the race was first held in 1999) was in decent shape. So race director Mark Stickley decided that, with a pre-race word or two of caution, the course was suitable for running. And not only did the course look better than it did on 8 February, but so did the weather. Temperatures were in the mid-twenties at the start, but the skies were crystal clear, giving the runners some gorgeous views of snow-covered fields and the mountains beyond.
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Rippey & Poulos
Men's winner Dan Nally
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Seventy-five runners headed out from the start, and four runners eventually started pulling away from the pack: 36-year-old Brad Rippey, 41-year-old Ted Poulos, and teenagers Dan Nally and Brian Markley. Poulos lost a few steps after one of our young course marshals failed to direct him onto the trail section, but thankfully Rippey called him back on course quickly. But it was Nally, a senior at Liberty High School in Fauquier County, who eventually pulled ahead and dashed to victory, winning in 17:39. Poulos managed to hold off Rippey for second, crossing the line in 17:49 to Rippey's 17:53. Markley, a Loudoun Valley High School senior, hung on for fourth in 18:05. It was full minute before the fifth place Mark Vann reached the finish.
B. Schrank
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On race day, Winchester's Brenda Schrank told your author a few times that she's out of shape, but she certainly didn't have to work too hard for her 21:03 women's win. Her closest challenger was 16-year-old Laurel Thomas, who just joined our fine club recently! The Berkeley Springs teen followed up her Treasure Hunt 5K win with a second place finish in 22:20. Sherando High School junior Rachel Eisenfeld had Thomas in sight for much of the race but couldn't quite make up the ground, taking third in 22:58. Tracy Rice of | |
L. Thomas
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Martinsburg ended up in fourth in 23:17, and the fifth finisher was also the top local finisher-- Strasburg High School freshperson Nina Pfeiffer (23:39)!
And then there was the team competition! Each runner could snag a partner before the race and sign up as a two-person team in one of four divisions: all-male, all-female, coed, or family. Runners ran the race as individuals, but prizes were doled out to the teams with the fastest combined times. Brian Markley may have finished fourth overall as an individual, but he teamed up with his dad Anthony to win the family team division in a combined time of 41:15. Men's winner Dan Nally was aided by his identically-named father, Dan, to place second among the families (43:30), in front of the husband & wife duo of Brenda and Ed Schrank (44:52). And although the mom & daughter pair of Lynne and Audrey Lawrence were the fifth fastest family, they were the fastest all-female family team (51:59).
Among the coeds, Alan Thatcher (sixth overall) and women's runner-up Laurel Thomas took first with a 41:34 combined time. Old buddies Mark Vann
Weimar & Greene
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and Kim Weisgerber-Craig were second in 43:44, and training partners Lorie Weimar and Ron Greene ended up third (44:17). Two of the coed teams had the highest combined ages-- Judy Masi was paired with Bob Atkins on a 120-year-old team, while the Fort Valley tandem of Judy McCarthy and Bill Melson were a combined 112 years of age. We also want to give a nod to Jen Peachey and Lowell Owsley, who ran the race together and were the final finishers-- but they looked like they had a great time!
Opting to run among the all-female teams instead of the family teams, twin sisters Tracy Rice and Michelle See emerged as the top all-female team in 48:49. Strasburg High School classmates Nina Pfeiffer and Brittney Latshaw joined forces for a second year in a row, bettering their combined 2002 time by nearly two minutes with a second place finish in 52:10. Trail pals Carol O'Leary and Kathy Smart took third among the female teams in 58:13.
Griffith & Palks
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And finally, Neal Riemenschneider made sure he found a decent runner to be his partner, pairing up with Brad Rippey to win the all-male division with a finish time sum of 37:13. Fiftysomethings Pat Griffith and Jon Palks (who, incidentally, ran a combined 169 races last year!) ended up as the second all-male team in 41:12, a mere thirteen seconds faster than the David Black/Steven Viers duo. Griffith and Palks were also the third oldest team, with a total age of 111.
We filled up extra space on our finish cards yet again by asking a post-race poll question, and this time we were inspired by television's Barbara Walters to ask, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Virginia's state tree, the dogwood, garnered the most votes (10), followed by the very tall redwood (5.3 votes). A surprising four votes were cast for "ent", which is a reference to a tree-like race of beings in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. A couple of arboreal-named runners made appropriate picks, with Laurel Thomas choosing the mountain laurel and Jen Peachey taking the peach tree. Mark Belanger chose to be a "money tree"... Chuck "Wimpy" Bowles would gladly pay you Tuesday for a "cheeseburger tree" today... and Neal Riemenschneider gave us the most off-color answer; he says he'd opt to be the tree "dogs pee on!" See the sidebar at right for a full breakdown of the poll results.
Many many thanks to Mark Stickley for all his work in pulling together the Tandems 5K! Mark rounded up volunteers from his entire family, getting assistance from wife Beth (who made the hats which were given out as prizes), mom Gloria, dad Ralph, brother Craig, nephews Jared & Chance, and niece Alyssa. Also helping were Mike McKiernan, Katie & Justin Baker, Chanda Bagnell, Ruth Riemenschneider, Kim Yeck, Kathy Manzo, David Black & his daughter, Jonathan Whitehead, and Brasilia Verdecchia & her mom & brother-in-law. Extra special thanks to Jane Baker for getting us the use of Signal Knob Middle School! And Mark also donated a prize or two from his running store, the Runner's Retreat in Winchester. Hopefully we'll be back next January for a sixth running of the Stickman's Tandems 5K-- and hopefully the weather will cooperate this time!
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