Published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey
On Sunday, September 11, 2016
ALL THE GRAND PRIX HAVE BEEN UPDATED
Both the New Balance individual grand prix and the Investors
Bank Foundation club and team grand prix have been updated. It is always interesting to see who is in the
lead overall and in the age divisions at the beginning of the fall racing
season. Almost invariably the person in
the lead at the beginning of September is not the person who will claim the
title in December.
Currently John Hogan, 51, of Washington Township has the lead but Atilla
Sabahoglu, 38, of Somerset is just one race away from jumping past Hogan.
Last year’s female winner Roberta Groner of Randolph needs a
championship in category II and a non championship race in category III and she
will move up from fourth place to first with a possibility of a perfect score
of 5700. All the other women are
running for second as there is no other woman running consistently in New
Jersey who can beat her.
The Clifton Running Club has the lead in the Investors Bank
Foundation Club grand prix and by a considerable margin over second place Shore
Athletic Club. Clifton has 437 points to
Shore’s 320.
Despite sitting out several championship races this year the
adidas Garden State Track Club is in third with 290 points but that is only a
ten point lead over the Garmin team with 280.
Even the Raritan Valley Road Runners are close with 269 points. Other Morris area clubs are in the mix with
the Morris County Striders in 8th, the Do Run Running Club in ninth
and the Randolph based Geezers in 11th.
The Garmin open men and M40 teams are in the lead in those
respective team divisions. Their open
women are in third behind the Garden state runners and the Clifton team and
second in both W40 and W50, again trailing the Clifton teams.
The Do Run runners are in third place in the M60 division
and their W50 team is in fifth place. It
helps to be the only team in a division and the Morris County Striders W80 team
holds first place and even with some competition in the W70 division they have
first place there as well. Their W60
team is in fourth place
LIBERTY HALF MARATHON NEXT SUNDAY
Those clubs will be sending their teams to Newport in Jersey
City for the Liberty Half Marathon on Sunday.
Billing your race as the most beautiful course in the state is asking
for an argument, but the views from many points along the course really are
spectacular. The Manhattan skyline from
the water’s edge and in Liberty State Park can’t be beat.
Running along the course may keep most runners from enjoying
the view. Ask a runner how they enjoyed
the view in any race and they are likely to say they never saw it. All they saw was the backsides of the runners
in front of them.
Last year the race had just 2,087 finishers. That was down from 2014 when 2,782 finished
the race. This year the number of
registrants has climbed. As of September 6th 2,734 had registered. In 2015 at this same time there were 1,828,
and in 2014 the number was 2,604. The race
organizers are predicting a field of over 3,000 and they may be right. Online registration doesn’t end until this
Tuesday, September 13th at just before midnight eastern time. Race day registration is allowed and that
opens at 6:30 a.m. along with packet pick-up.
The half marathon starts at 8:30 a.m.
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A calendar of USATF sanctioned events can be found at www.usatfnj.org or at www.raceforum.com for running and tri and
biathlon events.
Contact Madeline Bost at madelinebost@verizon.net.
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