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The race itself wasn’t special, even though it takes place each year in his birth city in association with Maine’s largest seafood festival, but it was the pursuit of an interesting racing trifecta that focused the attention of CRR Mark Deshon this summer.
After last Sunday’s race, Deshon, who first took on Rockland’s Lobster Festival 10K in 1997 during its silver anniversary year, has now competed in the race three times, winning his age group each time—in different 10-year age groups.
Despite what he viewed as a sub-par race performance (“I was on [my target] pace but completely blew up after four miles”), Deshon managed to finish 19th this year in 45:34, winning the 60-69 age group’s first-place plaque. He now has his third such winning plaque, having finished 6th overall in 1997 at age 41 in 37:47 and 21st overall five years ago at age 57 in 43:56.
Inevitably (like “death and taxes”), his times have slowed, but Deshon happily relishes this special—in a quirky sense—racing achievement, 21 years in the making.
On a sad note, one of the original Creek Road Runners, CRR Tom Brill, died on July 23 of complications from Parkinson’s Disease. Having retired from the University of Delaware in 2006 because of Parkinson’s, Brill also had to stop running, but he walked as much as he could in the ensuing years.
Brill wrote his own obituary, a portion of which says, “He enjoyed hiking, running, canoeing and mountain climbing. He and his wife [Pat] won the Gore-Tex triathlon mixed pairs in 1985.”
Pusecker, who has served as senior chief business officer for the University of Delaware’s College of Arts and Sciences since 2001, will join St. Mary’s College of Maryland on July 1 as the public honors college’s vice president for business and finance/chief financial officer. Before coming to UD, Pusecker retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel after more than 20 years of active duty service.
One Creek Road Runner—38-year-old CRR Andrew Weber—stood above all the rest (out of 699 finishers) in the Delaware Half-Marathon, winning in 1:22:34 and finishing a good five-and-a-half minutes ahead of the next runner. CRR Dan Weile punched his ticket for the podium by being the third man to finish (fifth overall) in 1:29:52. Both Weber (35-39) and Weile (45-49) would have won their respective age groups but had to settle for the bigger honor of having finished in the top three.
