Chad Lyons Photo
They're off!
Mike Scott photo
Winner D'Amato crossing the finish line Monday.
On a humid overcast day with at least the rain holding off, Keira D’Amato set a new women’s record Monday at the 45th annual Faxon Law New Haven Road Race.
D’Amato, a world champion marathoner from Midlothian, Virginia, ran the annual Labor Day 20K course through New Haven streets in an hour and four minutes.
She was one of about 4,200 runners who competed in various races, including the 20K and the 5K.
William O'Brien Photo
The men’s victor in the 20K race was Conner Mantz (pictured) at 59:09. The winner of the 5K race was Patrick Dooley, who came in at 15:45, which translates into a blistering five minute-and-four-second-per-mile pace.
Click here for all the results.
The centerpiece of the race day, the 20K, continued to draw Olympians and other elite runners like D’Amato and Mantz, who is a two-time nationally ranked NCAA cross country champion.
Runners represented 42 different states, the District of Columbia, and three foreign countries, according to race officials.
Allan Appel Photo
Proud: Emilee Risteen with dad Russ.
One of the runners was Emilee Risteen of Derry, N.H. Risteen left a primary school teaching career in part as a result of Covid conditions. She has become in just two years an elite marathoner.
Risteen crossed the finish line after an hour and 22 minutes. While she had hoped to come in at 1:11, she was all smiles afterwards, as was her proud dad Russ. “I just love it,” she said.
Many runners, like Risteen, utilize New Haven’s event as a tune-up for Olympic distance running trials in November.
Risteen, 27, now works six to seven days a week in an ice cream shop. (“I like to be around the high school kids!”) She also manages to find time in her schedule for a mere 16-mile run every day just to keep in practice.
For the rest of us non-world-class runners, New Haven’s race is very much an affair of family and of friendships dating back to when the race was established in 1978, coinciding with the national boom in distance running.
Allan Appel Photo
"Streakers" James McCormack, Jr. and Jim Kennedy.
Emblematic of that is the experience of the seven gold-bibbed “streakers” who attended Monday’s run. These -– among them long-time friends Jim Kennedy and James McCormack -– are so self-designated because they have participated in all 45 of the races.
McCormack said that running keeps him going at age 79: “I’m still living my life. I’m not in a rocking chair and waiting for You Know What to come.”
Still it takes a bit longer, Kennedy conceded, to run the race than it did in 1978. Back then McCormack finished in an impressive one hour and 16 minutes, he recalled, and Kennedy in an hour and 30 minutes.
Today? “I’d like under three hours,” said Kennedy. The two wished each other luck as they set off on the run, and McCormack said to Kennedy, “I’ll be out there near you.”
A friend of McCormack emailed this reporter just before press time with the good news: “James McCormack Jr. did finish under three hours! I believe it was 2:44.” (The official time was 2:44:47.) And his friend came in only seconds later.