With conditions near perfect, and a large energetic crowd of spectators on hand, conditions were right for new course records and that might have caused last year's winners, John Crews and Heidi Westerling-Westover, to go out too fast. It was almost each racer's undoing.
Although Crews and Westerling-Westover were swept up in the excitement and challenge, they managed to hold it together when adversity hit in the second half and repeated as male and female winners in the 22nd running of the Key Bank Vermont City Marathon on Sunday.
For Westerling-Westover, it was a record fourth victory, while Crews claimed back-to-back wins on the 26.2 mile course that wends through downtown and neighborhoods of Vermont's Queen City, and along the shore of Lake Champlain.
Crews looked a bit frazzled as he came down the chute to finish in 2 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, only 35 seconds off his PR and 48 seconds off the course record set by Michael Kobotov in 2001 – a mark many race aficionados expected to fall this year. On the plus side, Crews significantly improved on his 2009 winning time of 2:19:31.
"I was not too smart," said Crews, 25, a graduate student from Raleigh, N.C. "I went out way too fast looking for the course record. I wanted it pretty bad."
Meanwhile, Westerling-Westover was also seduced into a fast start by the 50-degree temperatures and ample cloud cover at the start as she went after her own course record of 2:35:02, set in 2009.
"At the half, I was 35 seconds faster than the record," said Westerling-Westover, who posted a time of 2:40:03. "It was way too fast. At the hill (mile 15) I could tell I had gone out too quickly and I struggled in the second half."
Crews ran with friend and fellow grad student Gavin Coombs, whom he talked into coming to the KBVCM only this week. The tandem of North Carolinians ran in a pack with Columbian runner Juan Carlos Hernandez and Vermonters Justin Fyffe and Curtis Wheeler until about mile 12, when Crews broke away.
"We traded off the lead until I took off by myself," Crews said. "I started out running 5-minute miles, then it was 5:10 and 5:20s. I just tried to hold it there and kept thinking, 'Don't blow up.'"
Crews' pace also affected Coombs, who was scheduled to run a marathon in San Diego but at the last minute decided to come to Vermont to run with his friend.
"We went out faster than I expected," said Coombs, who finished second at 2:22:05. "I got through 20 miles doing okay but was kind of hanging in there for the last 6.2 miles."
Coombs was working hard to hold off the charge of Fyffe, who matched his 2009 finish as the top Vermonter but radically improved his standing, finishing third overall.
"I knew he was coming," said Coombs of Fyffe, the East Dummerston runner. "I was just hoping I was fast enough to hold him off."
As it turned out, Fyffe was within hailing distance as the pair came down the final straightway to the finish line. While Coombs slumped with fatigue as he crossed the line, Fyffe was animated and exuberant wildly pumping his arms and letting out a roar.
Westerling-Westover's race held far less drama.
She ran with different groups of men, choosing to stay with a cluster for a while and then moving up to another. There were no women even close to her so she had to rely on how she felt, what her watch told her of her splits and the energy she drew from the crowd.
"There were so many people cheering, they were so supportive," said the fourth- and fifth-grade teacher from Walpole, N.H. "I started thinking, 'I'm going to PR today.' But I started to go downhill. Still I'm happy with my day."
The lone record that fell was in the wheelchair division when Jeremy Shortsleeve bested his own mark with a sizzling time of 1:34:26.
Jason Porter made a triumphant return to the KBVCM. The four-time top Vermonter when he lived in Williston came in as the top Masters runner with a time of 2:41:00. He ran with a photo pin of his daughter Jocelyn on his shirt, while his wife Jennifer was there to cheer him on.
"The last time I ran was in 2004 but I planned to come back as a Masters," said Porter, 40 an ultra sound technician from Bedford, N.H. "But now I came back in a new category and I'm a winner. I was walking around with this badge on and didn't even realize I was the top Master until somebody interviewed me."
Nathalie Goyer loves Vermont and loves the KBVCM. She matched her 2009 last finish as the top Masters woman, set a PR at 2:49:00 and again finished as the third woman overall.
"I love this marathon and I love the people and I love Vermont," said Goyer, 42, from Saint-Bruno, Quebec, who is running in her 43rd marathon. "We in Quebec feel very close to Vermont. I started running at 27 and this is my fourth marathon here."
Peter Delany, the Executive Director of RunVermont and race director for the KBVCM, was thrilled with the race.
"We had a great race and this was a great day," said Delaney, in his second year at the RunVermont helm. "We had a record number of participants (3,648 marathoners alone and more than 700 runners in each of four relay categories); a new wheelchair record and two defending champions repeat. What more could I ask for."
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