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Age-grading for us seniors is the big playing-field leveler and often reveals some important clues as to how well some Creek Road Runners are still racing.
On the Saturday before Christmas, at the local White Claw-mas 8K (close metric equivalent to a 5-mile run), there were two standouts among our contingent.
CRR Bruce Weber and CRR Diane Kukich placed first and second overall (out of 609 runners), respectively, in terms of age grading (scoring based on one’s time relative to the world record at that distance for one’s age). Weber scored an 82.5, and Kukich was close behind with 82.3. That, folks, is what is considered “National Class” (anything in the 80s). The two have been racing consistently with results like this for several years. There was only one other racer at this event who had an age-grading score in this range.
In terms of time, the 58-year-old Weber, a track runner at heart, placed 7th overall and won his 10-year age group in 31:05. The 67-year-old Kukich placed 123rd and took second among her respective age-group peers in 41:10.
Bravo!
Notably absent from last Saturday’s Turkey Trot races here in Newark was CRR Andrew Weber. That’s because he ran the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday. The 40-year-old Weber placed 400th overall in a huge field, breaking the 3-hour mark in 2:59:44 and qualifying for the Boston Marathon in the process. Congratulations to him on a major accomplishment in his new age group.
In the Rothman Orthopedics 8K (rough metric equivalent of a five-mile race), part of the Philadelphia Marathon Weekend, 52-year-old CRR Bill Farquhar finished in 29:59, 4th in his age group and 122nd overall (out of 4,130 competitors). That’s a six-minute/mile pace for this speedy senior!
In the 10K race, coming off having run both the 
Creek Road Runners are proud to recognize one of its own, CRR Sue Barton, as a world champion!
A longtime triathlete, Barton has recently become involved in the CrossFit craze—billed as the “sport of fitness.” Competing for the team UD CrossFit, the 60-year-old Barton recently bested 635 other women worldwide in the 60-69 age group within the slightly easier “scaled” (as opposed to the “prescribed” or “Rx”) category in the CrossFit Games, held over a five-week period from October 11 to November 8 all over the world in separate CrossFit venues.
The battle at the front was between CRR Andrew Weber and CRR Luke Nigro. Weber ended up besting the younger Nigro and winning the race in a time of 17:39. Nigro came in second overall and first in the 19-29 age group in 17:45.
The CRR Delaware Marathon Relay team roster changed from last year. Due to a schedule conflict, CRR Bill Farquhar was not able to run, and CRR Mark Deshon had gone into “relay retirement.” So, team captain CRR Bill Rose injected some “younger blood” into the team, recruiting newbies CRR Luke Nigro and CRR Katarina Smiljanec to join him and CRR Bruce Weber. This strategy paid off smashingly on April 28 in Wilmington, as the team turned in a stellar 2:49:23, winning the team competition by a mile (actually by more than three miles) and defending CRR’s relay 
CreekRoadRunners.org 