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
Jim Bray (left) received his HOF plaque during a spring track workout.
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
Jim Fischer (left) with Martin Wolfer and family in Zürich
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?
A happy post-race Tom Apple
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.
The middle of April turned out to be a whirlwind time for our newest Creek Road Runner and the first University of Delaware President among our connection of runners past and present—CRR Laura Carlson.
From the very beginning of her stint as Interim President at UD, Carlson had made a point of getting runners on campus involved by holding weekly early-morning 5K group runs. On April 16, however, the eve of her inauguration as President of the University of Delaware, she held a special 3 p.m. version, which was attended by nearly 100 runners. The field for this fun run, led by Carlson, included CRR Bill Farquhar, CRR Mark Deshon, CRR Tripp Shenton, CRR Jeff Chase, and CRR Artika Rangan Cassini. Leaving from Mentors’ Circle next to Hullihen Hall, which houses Carlson’s office, the run headed south to UD’s outdoor track for a lap around the track and back.
The following day was a gala celebration on campus, as Carlson shed the “Interim” title and officially became President. For her, that pre-inaugural 5K was just a leg loosener, as she was due to run the Boston Marathon the following Monday morning.
Carlson is no stranger to the Boston Marathon, having grown up in the Boston area. She completed her 15th Boston, the 130th edition of the storied marathon, on Monday, April 20, clocking in at 3:51:10 (3:48:04 chip). As one of more than 30,000 competitors, she placed 19,339th overall, 7415th among all females, and 119th in her age division. Pretty impressive.
In relation to her position at UD, here’s what Rangan Cassini said about Carlson in the recent issue of University of Delaware Magazine. “Carlson’s approach is steady. Like a seasoned marathon runner who knows that the journey of 26.2 miles begins with a single step, she leads with skills gleaned on the course: preparation, consistency, purpose and an uncanny ability to listen…. Now as president, she’s zeroed in on one question: How do we position ourselves for success 10 years from now? It’s the kind of endurance Carlson knows well.”
Creek Road Runners were saddened to hear of the death of CRR Bruce Hubbard on February 1, just nine days shy of his 80th birthday. “Many of you knew him, and he was a strong member of the running community,” noted CRR Jim Fischer. Like Fischer, Hubbard was a Minnesota native. He was a member of the Pike Creek Valley Running Club and was also a big proponent of Creek Road Runners.
CRR Mark Deshon asserted, “He loved our Creek Road Runners shirts, and he nearly always ran the annual ‘Wring Out the Old, Ring in the New’ 7.5K cross-country run at the Fair Hill Resource Management Area every New Year’s Eve morning. In fact, last year was the first year in memory that he didn’t show up for the run.”
Deshon was not surprised, because Hubbard had come to the 2024 event barely able to walk, let alone run. He had had so many health issues on top of the many running-related injuries he had suffered over his running lifetime. Yet, he was always very positive and hopeful that he could press on and do the next race, whatever that may have been.
A veteran of over a thousand races, Hubbard was always planning and training for his next big race. CRR Eric Jacobson commented, “His old car deserves a place in the CRR Hall of Fame. As he was driving down Creek Road, he’d frequently stop or slow down to share a quick story about his latest running adventures.”
Bruce Hubbard in the 2006 Delaware Open XC Championships 5K
It was nearly 20 years ago that he won the Delaware Open XC Championships 60-and-over age group, an impressive feat. Over the course of his life, he completed 30 marathons, a half-Ironman, and four eight-hour survival races.
Besides running and racing, Hubbard loved golf, skiing, and ice skating. He was an excellent skater, even in his 50s performing as a member of the Delaware Dazzles synchronized skating team.
He is survived by his ex-wife of 51 years CRR April Anderson and his adult children, Reid and Sally.
It was five years ago this week that we became aware of the virus that would reshape our reality—much like 9-11 brought with it TSA-screening lines at airports back in the 2000s—bringing Zoom into our collective vocabularies and virtual meetings into our work and personal communication practices.
Bob Bennett in 2010
It was also five years ago last Sunday that CRR Bob Bennett, co-founder of the Creek Road Runners, passed away after a long, steady decline with dementia. In five to seven years, he went from longtime local age-group competitor in races to someone who, as the result of suffering of the deterioration of his mind, could neither move or speak very well at all nor remember anything.
But that’s not what this article is about. CRR Mark Deshon, CRR’s other co-founder, reflects upon his good friend and running partner of 20 years and shares these personal remembrances.
Downhills were Bob’s delight. He primarily ran on his toes, which always struck me as not advisable.
In 1980, I competed in a local race on campus with him, though we hadn’t actually met. It was a small field, and I quickly found myself among a group of seven runners at the front and was hoping to stick with it for the remainder of the approximately four-and-a-half-mile race. It was when we turned from West Main Street onto Corbit Street, heading toward north campus, that Bob separated himself from the rest of his challengers, me included. By the time I got to the bottom of that steep hill, I was a good 50 yards behind the leader and eventual winner—Bob Bennett. Humble to the core, he and I met after the race, shared plaudits, and became friends and training partners thereafter.
Bob had a quick wit.
One day, Bob and another young friend and I were on a training run from Newark into nearby Maryland and back. As we were running, with a serious tone he said to us that “running on the roads in Maryland is illegal,” trying to convince us that Maryland had a law prohibiting such. For a moment, my friend and I, who were both a good 15 years younger than Bob, were duped. Then, he just chuckled at our gullibility.
During a time when I suffered bursitis in my ischial tuberosity (the pelvic bone on which one sits), I would sit on an ice bag in the locker room after training runs to treat it. Bob would see me and, in a fake southern drawl, remark that I was “sitting on my ice” (pronouncing the word “ice” like “ass”).
The written and spoken word was part of Bob’s craft.
Bob was a professor of English at UD and a Shakespeare scholar. Way back, well before the smartphone, he often would write notes to congratulate me on a particular accomplishment or remember me on my birthday. Often he would write lines of poetry, cleverly communicating a sentiment or encouraging me in verse.
The track was always Bob’s favorite. He had run for his beloved UNC Tar Heels [see above photo] and later trained with a group of prominent runners on the West Coast when he was a grad student at Stanford.
Back when the Delaware Field House had its 220-yard indoor track, we would occasionally head there to do interval training and get our speed kicks on the oval. One day, several of us went there to help CRR John Zolper achieve a 10-minute two-mile distance. Into his mid-40s by then, Bob managed to adequately act as John’s rabbit for the entire 16 laps. I couldn’t match that, having to stop for a breather after a five-minute mile and then join in again on the last half mile; even then, I couldn’t quite handle the pace.
In 1992, I had won a Philadelphia radio station giveaway of a subscription (an early forerunner of today’s various streaming options) to non-commercial telecasts of all track-and-field events of that year’s summer Olympics. Bob delighted in coming over to my house to watch literally hours and hours of this type of coverage, which I had recorded on VHS tapes, everything from the hammer throw to the short sprinting events. He particularly liked the excitement of the relays!
Bob Bennett in front of the Arc Corner stone in 2016
Remember Tiananmen Square?
Bob appreciated the natural beauty of Newark’s nearby park system. During a time when a new bridge over the White Clay Creek was being planned, Bob was part of a coalition of citizens who were surveilling the area for potential environmental violations with regard to pre-construction preparations. One day when it was his turn to check out the site along Hopkins Road, he observed a bulldozer trying to move and clear earth, which had not yet been authorized by the state. In a standoff reminiscent of that Chinese citizen in front of the tank, Bob stood in front of the bulldozer, ordering the operator to cease and desist. We have him and others to thank for helping preserve much of the state parkland we now enjoy.
Bennett touched many a runner in his time and was huge part, indeed the soul, of the now 45-year history of the Creek Road Runners. May he continue to rest, or run, in peace.
It was a bright and crisp day for the early-start edition of the “Wring Out the Old, Ring in the New” trail run, the event at Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area that Creek Road Runners have enjoyed since 1999.
CRR veteran Bruce Hubbard (left, a “two”) came out to help Bob Opila, run organizer Bill Rose (the “zero”), Mark Deshon (the other “two”), Greg Cauller, Dave Schultz (the “five”), and Bandit salute the new year.
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