From Europe to the Pacific and in between, Creek Road Runners are showing up and still representing. Here are just some recent tidbits.
HALL OF FAMER
First of all, locally, CRR Jim Bray became the newest inductee of the Pike Creek Valley Running Club (PCVRC) Hall of Fame this spring. Bray has run on Creek Road for many years, most recently as a regular on the PCVRC’s Sunday morning runs. Bray joins previous inductees CRR Deborah Compton, CRR Jim Fischer, CRR Bob Taggart, and CRR Mark Deshon.
His biggest claim to fame is that, as a Newark High School alum, he had held the state scholastic mile record of 4:15.7 for 28 years—between 1972 and 1999. In a 2024 News Journal article, he was listed as No. 15 of “the 30 greatest high school distance runners in First State history.” Jim has also been inducted into the Delaware Track & Field Hall of Fame.
Congratulations!
REUNION IN SWITZERLAND
It’s been nearly four decades since CRR Jim Fischer and CRR Martin Wolfer have been in the same part of the world. That changed recently, as Fischer and his wife Christine had a lunch date with Wolfer and his family in Zürich, Switzerland, about a 10K from Wolfer’s home.
Back in the late 1980s, when he was a post-doc at the University of Delaware, the Swiss-national Wolfer was a formidable racer who trained on Creek Road and at the UD track (in the early days of Fischer’s community track sessions). At that time, Wolfer held state-resident age-group records in the 5K and the marathon! Wolfer and Fischer were members of the Creek Road Runners team that finished second in the 1988 Caesar Rodney Half-Marathon’s team competition.
STILL HAWAI‘I STRONG?
CRR Tom Apple, a former University of Delaware Provost who trained on Creek Road back in the 2000s, is still going strong at age 71. After leaving UD, Apple spent several years at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and is Professor Emeritus in Chemistry. Hawai‘i was good chemistry for him; he’s obviously in good shape. He recently finished as the winner of his age group in the Run for Woods 5K on Langhorne, Pa., and finishing 22nd overall in 25:42—besting many runners half his age.
4:02:21 is now the official outdoor mile record in Delaware. This mark was set on the track at St. Mark’s High School this past Saturday by recent Harvard grad and Charter School of Wilmington alum Kieran Tuntivate in a special event meant to help eclipse four-minute mile barrier for the first time on Delaware soil. Unfortunately, Tuntivate fell just short of the intended goal.
Coming on the heels of a stellar college career and early professional racing success by Newark’s CRR Sam Parsons (read about 
Based on the aforementioned milestones, former Harvard runner and CRR Bruce Weber calls Tuntivate “the best Harvard distance runner ever.” He added, “I thought Kieran’s results eclipsed [those of] Adam Dixon (’82-83), who won multiple Heps championships in track and made the 1984 Olympic Trials final in the 1,500. [Tuntivate] set the American record in the 1,000 meters, and that time—2:19.8—may be the best record at the school.” Weber should know, as the 1984 grad once held both Harvard’s two-mile and 3,000m records.
The fastest mile time run in Delaware (4:01.1, by a West Virginia runner) occurred way back in 1971 at an indoor meet at the University of Delaware Fieldhouse. Notably, CRR Jim Bray, who ran for Newark High School, once held the Delaware scholastic mile record for an astonishing 28 years before it was broken in 1999.
CreekRoadRunners.org 