The morning started with an early rain looming as the humidity suffocated the participants during their warm-up. The women were slated to start the day. The pre-race favorites, according to www.ancientcityrr.org, were Sally “Shut Up and Run” Howes and Libby Arnold. Some of the dark horses with wheels were, Nichole Gebhart, Liz Adams and Jessica Born. Each woman had her reason as to why she should not be considered a favorite.
This was not the case on the men’s side. There was a great deal of bravado and trash talk going on amongst the men. However, the favorites were more well established than on the women’s side. Justin Taylor (sub 4:10 miler) was the hands down favorite with Todd Neville and Chris Calkins solidly entrenched to finish second and third, respectively. After that, no one was quite sure of the outcome, but state finalist Jonathon Thiele and fellow high schooler Marc Akbar were being challenged by the likes of Justin Breidenstein, Derek Ballew, Josh Romaine and Brent Bechtold.
Race Director Jay Decker gave the final starting commands and as the siren sounded, the Mickler Mile was under way. Libby Arnold went straight to the front and the spectators could see by the expression on Sally Howes’ face that she was content with letting Libby set the early pace. Every runner has been in a situation where he or she thought, “they will come back.” The risk in this situation is that they won’t and that is exactly what happened on this day. Libby never looked back and won the women’s heat of the Micker Mile in a course record of 5:42 outpacing pre-race favorite, Sally Howes, by nine seconds. Nichole Gebhart and Jessica Born finished in 6:05 and 6:16 for third and fourth, respectively, but the surprise of the heat was Eva Lowry dropping a 6:35 for fifth place.
As the women finished, the anticipation for the main event reached it’s peak. Some of the pre-race favorites were now complaining that they did not properly prepare due to Memorial Day outings on President Jay Floyd’s and John Regan’s boats. This added to the odds making, but nothing more.
Once again, Race Director Jay Decker sounded the siren and men were off. The men’s race did not unfold as quickly as the women’s. Justin Taylor went straight to the front with Calvin Windle, Jonathon Thiele and Chris Calkins right in his draft. Slightly back were Todd Neville and Brent Bechtold. The front group hit the first quarter in 60 with the second group three seconds back.
Taylor powered through the second quarter hitting the half in 2:08 slightly slower than the 2:06 he had predicted with Neville still three seconds back and the rest of the field starting to string out as predicted. The next quarter Neville closed slightly, but with 400meters to go, Taylor showed why he was the class of the field. He opened a huge gap by running a 59 second final quarter to cross in 4:17 and ten seconds ahead of Neville. Calkins maintained his third place position in 4:41 with the Marc “the Silent Assassin” in fourth with a time of 4:51. Note that Marc was not even in the first two groups at the quarter. Jonathon Thiele was the last person to finish under five minutes finishing fifth in 4:56.
The best race of the day however was for sixth place. With 400 meters to go to, Justin Breidenstein, Calvin Windle, James Resor, Brent Bechtold and Derek Ballew were tightly packed. Derek and Brent made the early move with James in close pursuit. It was now a three man race. With about 100 meters, Ballew moved the center of the road but blew up leaving the race to Bechtold and Resor. In the end, Resor leaned at the line to beat Bechtold in 5:03.
All in all it was a great day for racing and the Mickler Mile now has a very solid course record of 4:17.