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Karsten Brown finished the 35th annual Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in 59:34, good for 101st place/5205 registered male runners. Karsten started just behind the elite male unners and was part of the first wave. We salute him for his mighty effort, even though he wore a Howard County Striders singlet.
Finishing even before Karsten was Diana Pool, who for the second year in a row ran with the elite women, who started 15 minutes before the first wave of men. Diana finished in a time of 63:00, good for 27th place/5502 registered female runners. Since her time was faster than the winning female time in the first Cherry Blossom Run, held in 1973, she was one of those who received a special coffee mug for her efforts.
Diana ran as part of the CMAC female team, also containing Julie Culley, Kelly Gruber, and Heidi Wolfsberger. For the second year in a row, the CMAC team finished first in the Running Club, female, category.
CMAC at the 2007 Cherry Blossom 10-miler
CMAC's Culley 2nd American woman to cross Cherry Blossom finish line
The team of Julie Culley, Heidi Wolfsberger, Diana Pool and Kelly Gruber all helpedthe Central Maryland Athletic Club to its second consecutive women's team victory among running clubs Sunday, April 1, in the 35th edition of the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in Washington, D.C.
Culley, 25, of Baltimore, finished in 57 minutes, 18 seconds in the star-studded women's field and placed 13th in a field of 5,502 women. She averaged 5:44 per mile on the mostly flat, asphalt course. Teyba Erkesso, of Ethiopia, won the race in 51:44.
Finishing second for CMAC and 17th overall was Heidi Wolfsberger, 26, of Moosic, Pa., who was clocked with a net time of 59:29 (5:57 pace).
Culley and Wolfsberger placed third and fourth, respectively, in the women's 25-29 age group.
Diana Pool, 26, of Westminster, was third for CMAC and 27th overall in 63:00 (6:18). Pool led CMAC last year by placing 11th in the women's field last year in 59:39. This year, she finished 27th overall. Kelly Gruber, 23, of Westminster, rounded out CMAC's effort in 93rd place with a 10-mile debut time of 68:44 (6:53).
The top three runners scored for each team. CMAC's combined effort of 2 hours, 59 minutes and 47 seconds was just the third time in raced history a female team broke three hours, according to CMAC coach Doug Renner. Team NOVA Women placed second in 3:07:38 among eight teams.
"(Even with) Kelly as our No. 3 runner, we still would have won the team title," Renner said.
Pool has been a member of CMAC, a post-collegiate competitive running club based in Westminster, since its inception five years ago in April 2002. Wolfsberger has been with the team for more than a year, while Gruber and Culley are recent additions.
Complete race results can be found at www.cherryblossom.org.