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SVR Winter Series Race #2
Saturday 20 December 2003 - 9:30 AM
Blandy Experimental Farm & State Arboretum, Boyce, VA
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| Jingle Bell 5K
20 Dec 03 - Boyce, VA |
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What do you want your true love to give you for Christmas?
| 1. | five golden rings | 19 |
| 2. | nine ladies dancing | 10 |
| 3. | twelve drummers drumming | 7 |
| 4. | two turtledoves | 5 |
| 5. | a partridge in a pear tree | 4 |
| 6. | eight maids a-milking | 3 |
| 7. | seven swans a-swimming | 2½ |
| 8. | three French hens | 2 |
| 9. | four calling birds | 1 |
| | six geese a-laying | 1 |
| 11. | write-in responses | 29½ |
| * | no answer | 26 |
Unpicked multiple choice answers: eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping. |
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Start of the race
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Despite standing water, patches of ice, and rumors of postponement, the SVR's fifth annual Jingle Bell 5K went off without at hitch on Saturday 20 December 2003 at Blandy Experiemental Farm & State Arboretum in Clarke County. And a total of one hundred ten runners showed up for the race-- more than double the turnout of the opening race in the 2003-2004 SVR Winter Series one week earlier!
In the days before the Jingle Bell 5K, we received numerous reports of wet & icy conditions out on our certified 5K course at Blandy. While we certainly didn't want to call off the race, we also didn't want a repeat of last year's infamous Lincoln race. So we checked things out and saw that the vast majority of the route was clear, with only a small handful of icy areas. Figuring that the conditions were reasonably
Mike Meadows & Ray Bollock watch their steps
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safe, we decided to go ahead with the race! Co-race director Patrick Farris and the Webmaster spread sand on the ice and put out some surveyor's flags, and we offered detailed descriptions of the trouble spots both here on the Web site and in the pre-race announcements. Our words of caution were perhaps seen as overkill by some, but hey, better to start people off with low expectations than to have 'em think the course was in great shape!
Cars began streaming into Blandy around 8:30 AM, and by the 9:30 AM start time, a line of parked cars along the east side of Blandy Farm Lane stretched for over a third of a mile, almost all the way out to Route 50. Temperatures had climbed | |
Meghan Baird in holiday colors
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to around the freezing mark by the start, and a light but chilly breeze blew in from the west. Some of the sixty-two males and forty-eight females wore red & green in celebration of the upcoming holidays, and many had opted to grab a jingle bell or two at the registration tables and pin them (the bells, not the tables!) to their shoes. The bells made for a delightful cacophony of jingling and jangling as the runners traversed the course. (Your author, meanwhile, ended up destroying his ears after running the race with twenty-eight jingle bells pinned to his hat...)
Julie Bravin, Steven Viers
Molly Castille
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Winchester's Brenda Schrank, winner of last year's Jingle Bell 5K, faced some tough competition this year in the form of Vienna, VA's Julie Bravin. Bravin, Falls Church High School's 28-year-old cross-country coach, had been looking for a good race to run after the cancellation of a 15K she'd planned on doing the previous Sunday. Clearly she was ready, as she sped through our slippery course in 20:10-- the fastest women's time in the Jingle Bell 5K's five-year history. Schrank, 32, wound up with second place, despite bettering her 2002 finish by three seconds (20:30). Taking third place about a minute later (21:39) was the winner of last week's Mystery Distance Run, Molly Castille, who is now officially a member of our fine running club! Castille, 30, wound up with a ten-second gap on 38-year-old Monika Bracken and a nineteen second gap on 2001 Jingle Bell 5K victor Susan Musante, 35. The top Masters woman was 40-year-old Ann Robb, who beat 44-year-old Carolyn Wilson almost literally by a nose (both finished in 23:06)!
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Mark Stickley
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As for the men, you usually have a good idea of who will win the race whenever you see Mark Stickley suited up and ready to go! The 41-year-old Winchester resident and Runners' Retreat proprietor ended up finishing well off of his race record of 16:30 (hey, it was icy, folks!), but he still managed to maintain a comfortable margin over his competition, winning in 17:12. James Madison University sophomore David Bolton, 19, was also slowed a bit by the course conditions, but although he ran a 17:08 at the 2001 race to take third
David Bolton
Simon Biddle-Snead
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overall, this year his 17:36 finish was good enough for second place. Third place went to last year's winner, Brad Rippey, in 17:54, with last year's third place finisher, Robbie Olsen, improving his time by twenty-four seconds but dropping to fourth in 18:04. Simon Biddle-Snead, an all-state cross-country runner for nearby Clarke County High School, took fifth in an impressive 18:14. And the kid is only fourteen!
Thanks to the efforts of Vicki Shea & Myron Kremer, every runner received a finish card after they finished the race, to be filled out and turned in for the purposes of figuring out the results. (By the way, if any of y'all are wondering why the number on your card doesn't match your final finish place-- one finisher didn't take a card, thereby offsetting our numbering. We figured out where he finished and shifted the finish places down by one.) And on each finish card was our traditionally stupid post-race poll question! This year's holiday-themed multiple-choice question, inspired by the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was, "What do you want your true love to give you for Christmas?" The top pick ended up being "five golden rings"... no doubt because of their resale value. "Nine ladies dancing" was the second most chosen answer, a choice I thought would be much more popular with the male participants. (And perhaps similarly odd-- not one participant, female or otherwise, picked "ten lords a-leaping".) See the sidebar at upper right for a breakdown of everyone's poll responses.
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Neal Riemenschneider
Rick Kerby
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Many runners decided not to go with one of the twelve days of Christmas and instead wrote in their own responses for the post-race poll question. Among the author's favorites: "Thirteen slaps in the face" from unlucky Charles Bowles, a "new Jeep a-leaping" from hill-driving Colleen Snyder, "eight maids a-cleaning" from fastidious Mary Olien, "three French toast" from both Stewart Lockhart and your author (who, quoting a comedy song by Bob & Doug McKenzie, also asked for "two turtlenecks and a beer"), and "two happy kids" from motherly Diane Daddio. Rick Kerby and Neal Riemenschneider, meanwhile, had pretty much equivalent poll responses, although while Rick wrote "can't print in mixed company", we actually can't print Neal's response in mixed company. (Neal loves when I censor him so that he can give me a hard time about it!)
Prize winner Katie Spencer
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With the "Grab the Santa Hat Game" now banned due to some moron's back-breaking tumble while playing the game last year (we forget his name, but he has long hair and has a penchant for wearing ugly running tights), race directors Patrick & Krista Farris tried to come up with a new way to dole out prizes... but the course conditions nixed any thoughts of playing any other | |
Duane Williamson
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reindeer games during the race. So we just shuffled up the finish cards and passed out our wrapped prizes randomly after the race. Among the winners: Harriette Bayse, Kyra Brown, Erin Dusick, Dave Farinholt, Rachel Franklin, Sarah Gough, Jennifer Griffith, Colleen Snyder, Nancy Specht, Katie Spencer, Duane Williamson, and Jose Zambonino!
Hopefully all who participated, whether they won a prize or not, had a good time at the Jingle Bell 5K. Special thanks to old pros Patrick & Krista Farris, who did another great job with putting
Race directors Patrick & Krista Farris
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together the event! We also had invaluable help from Kevin Shea (who was stationed at the large patch of ice at mile 2¾), the aforementioned Vicki Shea & Myron Kremer (the finish card crew), Alexander Snyder (finish line), Jason Page (card gathering), and Kyra Brown (course cleanup). We'd also like to thank Jen Peachey, Judy Masi, and Kathy Smart for keeping us posted about the course conditions in the days before the race! And extra special thanks to the good people of the Blandy Experimental Farm & State Arboretum of Virginia, who have been nice enough to let us put on this race every year for the last five years. We urge everyone to support the arboretum-- visit their Web site at www.virginia.edu/blandy to find out how!
Remember, the third race in the 2003-2004 SVR Winter Series, the New Year Stagger 10K, is coming up on Saturday 3 January 2004. In the meantime, be sure to check out the Jingle Bell 5K results and all 111 race photos! (We apologize that we didn't get photos of everybody. We tried, but our digital camera is a little slow between shots. A big thank-you to Nancy Bullock, who took some of the Jingle Bell pics and is always nice enough to let the Webmaster fob his camera off on her during races!)
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