Baadj and Coven Set All-time CRR Age-group Marks at Hospice 5K
By Rick Platt
Although race winners Michael Mann and Nadia Baadj missed the overall course records Saturday at the fifth annual Hospice 5K Run at Ford's Colony, both broke race five-year age-group standards. Their age-group marks were among eight outstanding records, including two all-time Colonial Road Runners age-group performances by Baadj and Joan Coven.
Mann, 34, of Hampton had a pre-race goal of bettering Rob Hinkle's race mark
of 15:51 (from the 2000 race), but was an agonizing one second slower (with
a winning 15:52). Mann did erase John Piggott's men's 30-34 age group mark of
16:04 (from the first Hospice Run in 1998), a month after Mann fell nine seconds
short of Piggott's age-group record at the Vineyards 5K.
Baadj, 19, a William and Mary sophomore, not only broke Ashley Reyher's women's
15-19 age-group race record of 19:49, but she also bettered the long-standing
all-time CRR mark for women 15-19 (18:33 by Kate Hartley, another W&M student,
in 1996 at the Mental Health 5K) by nine seconds with her winning 18:24. The
women's Hospice 5K race record is 17:40 by Alison Holinka from 2001. As a freshman
with the W&M women's track team, Baadj had a personal record 17:23.59 (4th
at the Colonial Relays track meet in April), and her road PR is 17:40.
The top four men were Mann (15:52), Jim Bates, 46, of Hampton (16:43), Keith
Schumann, 30, of Williamsburg (16:45) and Daniel Shaye, 33, of Williamsburg
(16:51, his best time in four years). That order of finish is also the exact
order of the current standings in the Colonial Road Runnners Grand Prix, after
eight of the 11 races for 2002. Mann leads the Grand Prix with 57 points, followed
by Bates (46), Schumann (36) and Shaye (35). Defending Grand Prix champion Andre
Smith of Hayes has 34 points, and Ned Berg of Lee Hall has 33. Berg ran his
51st consecutive CRR Grand Prix race at the Hospice Run, by far the most ever.
Baadj won the women's race by 35 seconds over Kris Wilson, 29, of Newport News
(19:01) and Meredith Faulkner, 20, a William and Mary junior (19:38). While
in high school in Florida, Faulkner was coached by Roy Chernock, the former
W&M men's track coach from 1977 to 1990.
Both runnerups also set age-group marks, Bates for men 45-49 (16:43) and Wilson
for women 25-29 (19:01). The four other race age-group records were set by Jen
Quarles (women 30-34, 19:41), Sherry Volk (women 40-44, 19:42), Joan Coven (women
60-64, 22:28) and John Essery (men 65-69, 22:38), all of Williamsburg.
Quarles and Volk, who ran together the entire race, both had PRs, with Quarles
breaking the 20-minute barrier for the first time. Volk leads the CRR Grand
Prix with 65 points, followed by Quarles (49), Carol Talley of Toano (32), Valerie
Plyler of Newport News (25) and Lindsay Kent of Yorktown (24). Plyler was the
sixth woman under the 20-minute barrier, with her 19:53, an impressive total
for a race with 153 official finishers.
An amazing performance was turned in by Coven, perhaps the best CRR runner,
relative to age and sex. In a sport where there is a theoretical gradual slowdown
after age 40, Coven continues to improve at age 61. She still has the Hospice
record for women 55-59 with a 23:00 (from 2000), and bettered that last year
with a 22:48 (which was the CRR all-time mark for women 60-64 at the end of
the 2001 racing season).
This year Coven broke her age 60-64 all-time mark with a 22:40 at the flat and
fast Queens Lake 5K in April, then was 12 seconds faster (22:28) Saturday at
the much tougher Hospice 5K course on the hilly roads of Ford's Colony. Her
time was just six second shy of her personal record 22:22 (from the 1999 Queens
Lake 5K), which is the all-time CRR mark for women 55-59. Both of those all-time
records are faster than the CRR all-time mark for women 50-54 (22:42). Coven's
22:28 would have also won both the men's 60-64 and men's 65-and-over categories
at the Hospice Run.
The all-time records by Baadj and Coven were the second and third in the past
month, after Jamestown High graduate Bryce Ruiz smashed the previous men's CRR
15-19 all-time mark (16:13 by Ryan Neuhart in 1997 at Governor's Land) in winning
the Vineyards 5K in 15:28.