Monday, May 06, 2002
Pig Notebook
Local team dominates relay race
By Michael Perry and Gary Estwick
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati's relay team, with some of the biggest names in local running circles, dominated the City Challenge in Sunday's Flying Pig Marathon, crossing the finish line in 2 hours, 16 minutes and 15 seconds, well ahead of second-place Columbus' 3:07:15.
The Cincinnati team changed its order of runners — giving John Sence the final 8.2-mile leg — when it heard strong teams from Indianapolis or Detroit might enter. Neither did.
“We just wanted to give ourselves the best shot to win it,” Sence said.
T.J. Lentz, Jill Tranter, Henry Dennis and Sence easily won the race. “I felt blessed to be running out there with these three guys,” said Tranter, who originally was going to run the final and longest leg.
Lentz and Sence will try to qualify for the 2004 Olympic Trials, but Dennis — who Sence said ran “by far our strong leg today” — prefers shorter distances.
“This is the second marathon I've ever watched,” Dennis said. “I'm not going to do one, but it looks fun. We're the smart ones here — we split up the distance.”
5-MILE MEN: Two marathon men finished 1-2 in the second Papa John's Flying Pig 5-Mile Run. Michael Dehring, 31, the winner with a personal-best time (24 minutes, 47 seconds), ran a 2:38:00 in the Chicago Marathon last fall and finished seventh in the Heart Mini-Marathon in March.
Dehring graduated from St. Xavier High School and coaches the school's track and cross country teams.
Scott LeCates, 33, who coaches at St. Bernard, wanted to run the marathon Sunday, but he has battled a calf injury and he and his wife, Susan, had a baby girl, Iris, on April19. “People told me it was going to be demanding on my schedule, but I didn't know how much,” he said. LeCates had run the past two Flying Pigs.
The only complaint among the 5-milers: In a construction area near Firstar Center, there was some confusion about where to go.
LeCates said the same thing happened during the Thanksgiving Day Race.
NEW RUNNING BUDDY: Isaac Barnes, who finished second in the Flying Pig, is planning a trip to Tucson, Ariz., and Sunday he found someone to run with when he's there: third-place finisher Scott Young, who lives in Arizona. The two exchanged phone numbers after the race and expect to get together when Barnes travels west.
Barnes said that's not unusual. Three years ago at the Flying Pig, he met another runner, Scott Colford, and those two stayed together in Wisconsin when they went there to run a marathon. Colford, from Logansport, Ind., finished fifth Sunday.
WATCH THE FEET: After injuring her left foot in late December, Cincinnati's Linda Jeanmougin returned to competitive racing Sunday in the women's 5-mile run and won in 32:39.
“I've only been running for about six weeks,” she said. “So I was just tickled to do anything respectable.”
She recently recovered from either a stress fracture or broken bones in her foot.
“From what I saw, she looked pretty good,” friend/running coach Chris Byron said.
Her foot problems started at Christmas, when she dropped one of her nephew's toys, a Tonka truck, on her foot.
Her foot injury stopped her from competing or training for races until mid-March, and she didn't have enough time to prepare for a marathon.
Sarah Leeper, a seventh-grader at Loveland Middle School, finished second Sunday in 33:17. It was her personal best.
WHEELING AROUND: The third year was the charm for Chad Johnson, the winner of the wheelchair division.
Johnson put together a strong showing, finishing in 1:53:15, more than 32 minutes ahead of Gerardo Maldonado.
Johnson's previous Flying Pig Marathon races had been marred by flat tires.
“This year, I brutalized the course,” he said.
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Pig Notebook
