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Favorites make other plans

Many of the area's top runners will be absent from Thursday's race, leaving this year's titles up for grabs.

By DAVE THEALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 21, 2001

With last year's winners not planning to defend their titles, the door is open for others to step forward and vie for the crowns in the 23rd running of the Thanksgiving Day classic in Clearwater.

Russ Gerbers, the defending men's champion, is a fifth-year senior at South Florida and has been busy with a teaching internship at Chamberlain High. He said he hasn't been training seriously and will instead focus on his final track season this spring.

Christy Phillips, the top female finisher last year, is a physical education teacher and track coach at Jefferson High who has been bothered by a back injury. Her plan Thursday morning is to run the Wingding 5K. However, she doesn't expect to be in contention and will aim for a time in the 20- to 21-minute range.

Last November, Phillips won the 10K main event (6.2 miles) in a personal-best 36 minutes, 24 seconds, and went on to win the Hops Marathon in December.

Tony Teats of East Lake, last year's Turkey Trot runner-up and the top runner in the area this year, would be the logical favorite to win the title if he hadn't strained a hamstring at last month's Chicago Marathon. He won't compete Thursday.

Seminole High graduate Erik Lipham won the race in 1999. He's the head cross-country coach at Jacksonville State (Ala.), but he won't race because he's a new father, said his dad, coach Lance Lipham of Keswick Christian. So who will compete?

Paul Marmaro of Delray Beach, the 1997 and '98 winner. However, the former Pinellas Park High and Louisiana State miler said he wasn't 100 percent and hadn't registered as of Saturday. "I'll be there with a large family group but haven't decided yet if I'll run," Marmaro, 37, said. "I have an inflamed calf muscle. But I've run 31:30 this year and may enter it."

St. Petersburg's Steve Wilcox finished sixth last year and has been running stronger this year. He finished third at the Bull Run 10K earlier this month and could get down into the 33-minute range on a cool morning.

Danny Bauer of Largo, a freshman standout on the West Florida cross-country team this fall, should improve on last year's 34:44 (eighth place) by a minute or two.

In the field of approximately 2,000 runners representing 36 states and four countries, the winner could literally come out of the woodwork. In fact, the first winner of the Turkey Trot in 1979 was Hugo Wey from Switzerland, a student at Eckerd College.

The women's field is also cloudy.

Laure Blume of Pinellas Park ran a personal-best 37:08 last year for second place behind Phillips. Although she virtually took the summer off, she ran a respectable 38:47 to win the Bull Run on Nov. 4.

Blume, whose main focus is the Disney Marathon in January, said she's not ready to run in the 37-minute range and doesn't expect to win.

No woman has won the Turkey Trot with a time in the 37s since Nia Zollo clocked 37:20 in 1988. All the winning times since then have been between 34 and 36 minutes. Two-time winner Judy Maguire of the Dianetics Running Team, who ran 37:09 at Saturday's Avon race at USF, said she plans to run the 5K Thursday morning but might "... put on my training shoes and run the 10K, too, if I feel up to it. Laura Drake won both the 15K and 5K at Gasparilla last year; that was something. I feel real stiff now (Monday) so I'll just see how I feel and see how far Laure (Blume) is ahead of me."

Jacki Waller of St. Petersburg, a 35-minute 10K runner in 2000, is coming off a 40-minute 10K road race at Lakeland on Sunday. She said she'll run the 10K but isn't in shape to compete for the title since her training is focused on the Hops Marathon next month.

Tierra Verde's Lisa Valentine should run with the leaders and is a viable candidate for a top three finish. She won the Fort DeSoto 10-miler earlier this month.

There will be many noteable absences.

Sandy Shelton, last year's third-place finisher, has moved to the Miami area.

Teenage phenom Christa Benton of St. Petersburg, one of USF's top three runners this fall, ran in Monday's NCAA Championships and will not be allowed to compete, said USF coach Heather Curtiss.

Laura Drake, the St. Petersburg native living in Atlanta, won't be home for Thanksgiving, opting tocompete in the Atlanta Marathon on Thursday. She would be the favorite after running 33:58 for third among American women at July's Peachtree Road Race.

The winner of Saturday's Avon race, Amy Yoder Begley of Indiana, took her $500 first-place award and celebrated at Walt Disney World with her husband.

And Liane Rae of Belleair, who has been coming on strong (37:09) this fall, elected to travel to New Jersey with her family for an extended family reunion. In other words, look for a familiar face -- Blume, Maguire or Waller -- to break the tape on the track at Clearwater's Jack White Stadium. If not, someone such as Jennifer Bean of Bermuda, who won in 1983 in 37:37, could take the title.

In the 5K, the early favorite is Nate Davis of Largo. The FSU junior finished second last year in 15:42. He'll have to contend with Keith Batten of Clearwater, who won the event in 1994 in 15:06 and finished second at this year's Midnight Run 3K in Dunedin.

A third favorite is Rikki Hacker of Riverview, winner of four Clearwater Beach races last summer.

Maguire won the women's 5K last year (17:33) and has won the 10K twice, and until someone beats her more than once, she's still a favorite.

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