Titus Leeds GLRR to Victory at the 2007 Cape Cod Marathon

October 28th, 2007
Falmouth

[sorry no pictures - yet]

Titus Mutinda, just returned from Kenya.  He's back rooming with Benjamin again.  He was the hot topic after the Cape Cod Marathon.  Everyone was amazed a 42 year-old master could school all the boys, except last year's race winner Shad Miller.  The pace of the race was slow over the first half, which the lead pack ran in 1:16 (a rather slow 2:32 pace).  With the pace so slow, Titus decided to pick it up led the break.  Shad and 3rd place finisher Avi Kramer came with him.  Shad said later "Titus pushed me." and it led to the first 4 finisher all having negative splits.  And if you know the Cap course you know how difficult that is.  When they got to mile 20, it was just Shad and Titus.  Shad made his move at 25.  Titus said at the awards ceremony "I’m 42 -- a Master, so I feel very good to hang with the young guys."

Benjamin had a good day, running 2:32 (even splits).  Unfortunately Avi Kramer was one point in front of Benjamin, so he gets second in the Open Mens Grand Prix final standings.  Eric who is still on the comeback trail finished in 2:43.  I know he had hoped for better, but given the injuries he's been fighting off, it was impresive.

Titus was our only Master, so it was up to the old guys (us 50+ types) to pick up the slack.  No problem - we have Dave Oliver and Andy C.  Dave was 3rd Senior overall in 2:49 and Andy ran 2:52.

So, with Titus, Benjamin, Eric, Dave and Andy, GLRR raced to 2nd place in the mens open team division a mere 3 minutes behind Whirlaway and a comfortable 20 minute margin over 3rd!!  And in the Masters division we toppled the Whirlaway dynasty taking 1st with Titus, Dave and Andy out racing them by 4 minutes.

With Dave and Andy we were the easy winners in the Seniors division.  Glenn ran 3:18 to give the team a total of 9:01:44.  We were really hoping for sub 9 hours and missed it by only 104 seconds.  Oh Well.

All during the Grand Prix season it was nip and tuck between Dave and Reno Stirrat.  Reno get the better of it at the cape, but Dave had a 2 point led going in.  So they tied as co-champions of the Senior division.

Not to be outdone, the ladies fielded a team.  With no margin for error Amy Molloy, Diane Geehan and Nancy Flaherty laced 'em up and ran 3:33, 3:38 and 3:40.  For Diane it was a masive PR and Nancy was just off of an Ironman triathlon.  It was pretty awesome to achieve such a great result.

In addition to all the great marathon runs - we had two runners, Dave Oliver and Bryon MacSweeney, who earned coveted Iron Runner Jackets by completing the marathon. 

Here is a list of everyone who ran: