Loading up the bus

Having ridden a school bus to the starting line, and armed only with the knowledge that the course was somewhere between three to five miles in length, fifty-nine (mostly) warmly-dressed souls chose to take on the challenge of the eleventh annual Mystery Distance Run!

Elaine Fulmer

The scenic course started smack-dab in the middle of Millwood, VA, and headed north on Route 255 for a mile before making a series of left turns, bringing runners through the town of Boyce and back to the finish line at Powhatan School. After the race, runners made guesses of varying quality as to the distance of the race (with optimists such as your Webmaster thinking that the course was longer than it actually was). Both 55-year-old Jason Page of Hamilton, VA, and 26-year-old Elaine Fulmer of Front Royal came within a hundredth of a mile of guessing the correct distance of 4.45 miles!

Jason Page finishing a step ahead of Carolyn Wilson

Local woman Carolyn Wilson may not have fared well at guessing the race distance, but she had better luck in the race itself, using the undoubtedly familiar roads near her hometown of Millwood to top the women's field in a time of 30:42 (6:54 per mile). Fellow 40-year-old Kim Burns of Winchester was second in 31:09, and Winchester's Sandy Adams followed forty-eight seconds later. Krista Farris (32:39) and Heather Owens (32:58) rounded out the top five.

Mark Stickley

Eric Chandler's unbeaten streak in this year's Winter Series ended at the Mystery Distance Run, as the 25-year-old (who I'm told had been sick in the week prior to the race) was defeated in the men's competition by both Mark Stickley (23:51; 5:22 per mile) and Clarke County High phenom Dustin Sweeney (24:28). Teens Ryan Bayne (25:36) and Jeff Jardine (26:29) were far behind for fourth and fifth. (Your Webmaster was even further behind.)

Judy Masi, criminal and victim

Following the race, the eighteen runners whose course distance guesses were the closest (see the right column for a full listing) each got to pick a brown-bagged mystery prize, but better guessers were allowed to steal prizes from runners who had already picked. SVR Junior President Kim Weisgerber perpetrated the first steal, callously snatching a package of light bulbs away from Mark Stickley. Poor Mark went back to pick another bag and wound up with the booby prize: two AA batteries! Judy Masi played the roles of both criminal and victim, taking candy from a non-believing Ryan Bayne before having the candy promptly stolen by top guesser Jason Page. Other top guesser Elaine Fulmer magnanimously refrained from doing any stealing.

Chris Northrup

This was reportedly Chris Northrup's last year as the Mystery Distance Run race director! We bow before Chris for his many years of hosting this event. Taking the helm next year of the longest consecutively-held SVR Winter Series race will be Mr. Tom Robb, who drove the bus to the starting line this year. From bus driver to race director-- that's quite a promotion! Thanks to Tom and to the other volunteers this year: Tom Sullivan, Jerry Anderson, Judy McCarthy, Jean Thornton, Ann Robb, Kim Weisgerber, Neal Riemenschneider (who measured the course), and a couple of other people whose names I can't recall. We had so many great volunteers that Bill Melson, who had planned on helping too, was actually able to run the race instead!

Please be sure to check out our full race results.