Dirigo running club went down to the Florida Keys this past weekend to run the Half Shells half marathon, and managed a 1-2-3 sweep.
KEY WEST For the second consecutive year, runners from Maine dominated the Half Shell 1/2 Marathon although the change in climate was a rough transition for some.
Last year David Weatherbie, from Cape Elizabeth, was first overall and appeared to be headed for his second-straight title, but Dirigo Running Club teammate Mike Payson, from Falmouth, passed Weatherbie near the eight-mile mark on College Road and finished one-minute ahead with a 1:18:14 time to take top honors over 432 total finishers in the ninth annual event.
Peter Bottomley, also from Cape Elizabeth, made it a clean sweep with third place, running a time of 1 hour, 22 minutes and 36 seconds over the 13.1-mile course, which started and finished at Lands End Marina.
All in all, there were 9 Maine finishers in the top 50. That is not too shabby of a turn out, even without Dirigo leading the rest of the pack by almost 4 minutes.
Michelle Weiler won the women’s race in just over 90 minutes, almost 3 minutes ahead of second place Brenda Wilson.
(Sources: Race Results – KeysNews.com [registration required])
So, are we going to be describing runners from Maine in the same awestruck tone as we do Kenyans and Ethiopians 😉
Maine has a very competitive masters field; there are at least a half dozen guys on my team alone that I have little chance of beating on an average day that are 15-20 years older than me (or more, in one case).
As an example, Dirigo won the regional 5k cross country championship and placed 5th in the national 10k cross country championship this past Autumn.
It is not uncommon for a local race to have 8 masters in the top 10 around here.