2010 Synopsis

Well, guess what, we had a record number of new entries to the HONOR ROLL in 2010; more than 680. Of course, this was helped by the fact that we had a record number of certified races during the year, including almost two dozen brand new ones. However, several races were not run as certified and other problems caused several other results to be disqualified. But on the other hand, there were several known certified races that never bothered to make their results available. Gene Wee has again done an outstanding job of getting all my data loaded on the Lawrence internet site. Also Steve Robb in also actively pursuing getting the Pittsburg site re-energized.

As far as new records are concerned, the increase in Honor Roll times did not result in any big increase; the ladies did much better than last year, but the guys were about normal. But the amazing thing was the age of many of the records that were broken; here are the ones that were more than 10 years old;

Men's 8K age 45-49: set in July 1983, time: 26.41 held by the great Clyde Davidson - his last record is finally broken by Dennis Smithhisler - new record of 26.16. And:

Dennis Smithhisler of Wichita not only took out the oldest record, he also clipped his own Half Marathon mark set just last year plus knocking out Steve Riley's excellent 10K record set exactly 10 years ago, 32.58 vs 34.04. Another notable achievement was Keith Long's 5K noted above; that replaced a Jeff Berven record. But Jeff was so good that he still owns eight other records plus a Resident record.

On the female side there were several other excellent achievements besides those shown above. But for bragging rights Sheryl Drevo of Goddard took down a record held by the almost incomparable Carolyn Buckner in the 10 Mile - 1:27.26 vs 1:28.11; but like Jeff, Carolyn still holds eight other records plus a State Resident record as well. The running community still mourns the loss of this amazing athlete five years after losing her final race to cancer. Barbara Holzman of Wichita had a stellar year across the gamut of distances, breaking two records in the 55-59 age group, 10 mile and half marathon. But she also led the age-adjusted rankings in two other distances as well, plus a close second to Trudy Calloway in the 10K. (See Masters Analysis). The most disappointed gal of the year was Beth Rogers of Wichita, shown above as the new record holder in the 65-69 8K; but she ran an excellent Wichita Marathon late in the year that turned out to be just the State Resident record. Unfortunately, her age group record had been broken earlier in the year by a runner from California.

You'll notice a major change in the Honor Roll section. On Gene's recommendation, we decided to put he race name and location beside each Honor Roll entry. This saves a reader from having to refer to the separate Races Researched table, except to find out the years that were researched for each race event. However, it resulted in a lot more work than we anticipated. Another decision we made was to retain the 2009 HONOR file as a separate entity for runners to reference. This also entailed quite a bit of extra work because in addition to the usual minutia of minor mistakes, we had to clean up the 2009 files because of a couple of races that were found to have not been certified as reported last year.

And one final note. My wife and I have decided to downsize from our current residence of 40 years. We are actively pursuing quarters more suitable for a couple of 80 year olds, particularly eliminating the four levels of steps we must navigate every day. This also means eliminating many of the 40-years worth of running records that I store in my office, plus 50 years of genealogical records, and my wife's 50 years of quilting supplies and material, but hopefully none of her award winning quilts. With the internet now out of my hands, I need to train someone to take over the annual collection and Honor Roll analysis of certified road races in Kansas. The procedures to follow are pretty well defined, but I need someone who has a real interest in data maintenance. 

Contact me, Millard “Jack” Crook, at  m-crook@att.com.