Community Corner
March Madness on Mercer Island, the Rotary Half Marathon (Photo Gallery & Results)
Though a majority of the participants of this annual race were from off-Island, Mercer Island runners and walkers did themselves proud on the first official day of spring
On the first day of spring it was a sunny 50 degrees for the 39th annual Mercer Island Rotary Half Marathon, launched at the Community Center at Mercer View.
More than 3,700 runners and walkers participated in the six-race event. Around 10 percent of that number came from Mercer Island.
Race director Dawn Naye and Rotary club members Bo Darling, race director emeritus and Sam Sullivan, associate race director, were on hand to herd volunteers and walkers/runners in the right direction.
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“Back when Bob Langenbach started this race there were only 19 runners who were looking for a way to gear up for marathon season,” said Darling. “Two years later, the Mercer Island Rotary got involved as a fundraiser for all the charity work we do on and off-Island.”
After Rotarian Tom Lindquist’s sister Susie Lindquist Mjelde died of colon cancer in 2002, he sponsored a spot on the Half Marathon T-shirt that said “Get Screened.” Darling approached Lindquist to see if there was something that the Rotary could do to be more valuable to the colon cancer cause.
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The Rotary decided that half of the money brought in via race registration and donation would go to Washington Colon Cancer Stars, a screening, support and colon cancer awareness group, and the other half would go to Rotary’s other local, national and international charities.
“Rotary has also made the race renown,” said Darling. “We’ve gone from 1,800 participants to 4,850 participants in the past eight years, mainly because we’ve changed the start time from 12:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., because runners like to run early, and we standardized the (start) time to every half hour. Plus, we partnered with the Washington State Colo-rectal Cancer Task Force to do a media campaign to promote awareness, screening and the race. As soon as it became clear that it was a community based health care message, people started calling us and lining up to join (the race).”
That was certainly true for Island resident Kelly Borek, running with one of the largest groups called “Todd’s Team.” Borek signed up to run the half marathon because her father died of colorectal cancer in 2010.
“Todd is the brother of a dear friend of mine,” said Borek. “He’s fighting colon cancer and is running the 10k today after his fifth round of chemo therapy.”
Runners came from all over the region and the country to run, including John Grandits from Stowe, Vermont.
“I’ve never been here before, and it’s such a beautiful place, I wanted to get a new perspective on Mercer Island,” he said “The weather here is great, too, it’s 22 degrees in Vermont, but it’s 55 degrees here, which is refreshing…if it were snowing, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed.”
Ten-year Island resident Holly Postman really committed to the race by having her 4, 6, and 8-year-old children race in the kids dash and her 15 and 17 year olds race in the regular half marathon with her. “We are part of the group at our church, and we decided to participate as part of the community,” she said.
Dorothy and Paul Kennedy, aged 85 and 87, also participated as part of the Feet to Faith team. “We did it last year, and it was a lot of fun then, because we like the walk from Covenant Shores, where we live, to here,” said Dorothy. “Three miles isn’t much of a challenge for us, though,” adds Paul, “But we have a great cheering section that is ready for us when we get back home.”
Sam Sullivan noted that though the number of race participants was down from last year, the Mercer Island Rotary will still be able to give half of the approximately $200,000 raised today to colon cancer prevention. “Colon cancer is 90 percent preventable with screening, and it’s the number 2 cancer killer in America,” he said. “This year’s races went extremely well; I’ve been doing this for 7 years, and it just gets better every year—I got nothing but positive feedback from participants.”
Race Results:
Kid’s Dash, half-mile:
Blake Hall, age 9, Mercer Island
Maggie Jenkins, age 8, Mercer Island
Half Marathon Run:
Female Winners:
Megan Johnson age 29, Mercer Island, time 1:20:52
Andrea Garvue , age 26, Seattle, time: 1:22:33
Sayaka Yoshinaga, age 27, time: 1:23:33
Male Winners:
Kevin Murphy, age 31,Mercer Island, time: 1:11:05
Evan Blanshan , age 24, Seattle, time: 1:12:22
Shaun Frandsen, age 33, Seattle, time: 1:12:43
Half Marathon Walk:
Female Winners:
Mavis Butterfield, Age 41, Gig Harbor, time: 2:25:09
Megan Hall, age 41, Mercer Island, time: 2:31:14
Niki Dorsey, age 37, Dupont, time: 2:31:55
Male Winners:
Scot Evans, age 47, Bellevue, time: 58:06
John Ravits, age 57, Mercer Island, time: 2:21:54
Rod Hall, age 43, Mercer Island, time: 2:27:35
10K Run/Walk:
Female Winners:
Koni Braman, age 39, Mercer Island, time: 34:35
Susan Empey, age 42, Mercer Island, time: 38:49
Andrea Eiseman, age 27, Seattle, time: 39:54
Male Winners:
Richard Corff, age 50, Bellevue, time: 28:47
Glen Weissman, age 41, Bellevue, time: 35:37
Larry Uhlman, age 41, time: 36:11
5K Run:
Female Winners:
Sally Bergesen, age 42, Seattle, time: 19:41
Sarah Lesko, age 41, Mercer Island, time: 19:42
Michele Green, age 41, Duvall, time: 22:10
Male Winners:
Keith Laverty, age 24, Bellevue, time: 16:30
Steven Miller , age 25, Denver, Colorado, time: 18:04
Zeb Breuckman, age 23, Bremerton, time: 19:14