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What a difference a year makes.
Last year’s Kettle 100 featured a hot steamy morning followed by torrential rain and occasional tornados that reduced the finishing field to a mere 37 runners.
If last year was Ying, then this year was Yang, as temps started and stayed in the 50’s all day. The only precipitation was a little light rain during the day and the sky even cleared up enough at night to flash some peeks at the full moon. It was a perfect day (and night) for a long run resulting in 90 finishers and a respectable 67% completion rate.
The LPTR crowd had 9 runners entered in the 100 mile and several more cracking the whip as pacers.
Ron Bero ran the race solo and led the LPTR’s by capturing the Masters division with a 19:36:30 and 7th place overall (check out his action photo above!!). His performance edged fellow LPTR Kevin Grabowski who finished hot on his heels in 19:49:17, (13 minutes is “hot on ones heels” in an Ultra, isn’t it?!!? Ahhh, the spoils of the blog poster…) good enough for 8th overall and 2nd in the Masters division. (Just a note: Any credit for Kevin’s finish would have to go to fellow LPTR Joel Lammers who, as his pacer, drove him like a rented mule.)
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Robert Wehner and Craig Swartwout both cracked the sub 24 hour barrier with a 22:15:26 and 22:49:45 respectively, and the most recognized LPTRunner, Brad Birkholz, logged yet another ultra finish with a 24:20:35. A possible tibial stress fracture forced Jeff Mallach out of the race late in the game. He was given credit for the 100k finish with a 100k checkpoint time of 13:55:52. (Cringing at the thought of grinding out Ice-Age trail miles on a stress fracture is appropriate here…)
The LPTR women were led by Julie Treder’s strong performance. She won the women’s open division with a 23:21:12 and was the 2nd place female and 29th finisher overall. Angela Barbera knocked 45 minutes off her PR with a 25:23:25 and grabbed a 3rd place finish in the Master’s division.
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Noticeably absent from the finish times was LPTRunner Christine Crawford, who led the women’s field by over 30 minutes at the 50k checkpoint, but was fighting a losing battle with a bum hip. Sometimes you have to live to fight another day…
Check out the official results at:
www.runrace.net/findarace.php?id=09157WI1&tab=a4&results=1541
I will post links to Race Reports as I stumble on them…
http://stevequick.blogspot.com/2009/06/2009-kettle-moraine-100-in-prep.html
http://blogoftraining.blogspot.com/2009/06/kettle-moraine-2009-100-mile-report.html