It happens every time.
Big Islanders line up at the start line preparing for another friendly battle with familiar competition, the race starts, and then, out of nowhere, an unknown, out-of-towner rips to the front of the pack – leaving everyone in their dust.
At Sunday’s Carboman 10-Mile Mosey, John Moyher from Haddam, Connecticut did just that — rip it.
“I’m celebrating my wife’s 40th birthday so we came out for a week of R&R and looked online to see if there were any road races here and found this one,” Moyher said. “I saw that it was a 10-miler and since I’m currently training for a marathon I thought this would be perfect.”
The 36-year old Pharmacist, who is gearing up for the upcoming Vermont City Marathon at the end of May, finished the 10-mile out and back course on Alii Drive in 1 hour, 5 minutes and 45 seconds – a full three minutes ahead of the second place runner.
“It’s beautiful here but hot and a lot more humid than I’m used to so it was a bit of a body shock as it’s about 35-degrees in the morning at home,” Moyher said. “My goal was to run my own race because I know not to run someone else’s race because then you get toasted. The goal was to stay 6:30-6:40 pace through the halfway mark and then come back to see what I had left. Looking at my GPS watch I was able to do 6:40 or better every mile so I was really happy with that.”
Tom Davis followed in second place at 1:08:45, with Laupahoehoe’s Alan Ryan right on his heels in third at 1:08:51. Ryan also competed in The Hapalua – Hawaii’s Half Marathon over in Oahu two weeks ago and placed an impressive sixth overall as Hawaii’s top finisher in 1:23:39.
On the women’s side, I moseyed down Alii Drive and back in a time of 1:09:33. Sara Madden followed in second at 1:20:31, and Captain Cook’s Erin Rene rounded out the women’s top three with her time of 1:24:03.
In addition to the Mosey, Sunday’s event featured two other distances with all three races named after Big Island athletes: The Carboman 10-Mile Mosey in honor of Craig Leeper, the Road Runner 3.5-Mile Romp after myself, and the 1-Mile Mighty Mouse Scamper honoring Linda Jane Kelley.
In the Road Runner 3.5-Mile Romp, defending champion and course record holder (21:34), Cody Ranfranz, sprinted straight to the front in hopes of inking yet another Peaman victory to his resume.
But as the 16-year old teen speedster hit the halfway mark the unthinkable happened – he mistakenly kept going – leaving the door wide open for Kailua-Kona’s Tim Robinson who was trailing behind.
Robinson now found himself as the new leader, while Ranfranz, who sprinted past the halfway mark by a good half a mile, put on a hard chase to catch back up to the new leader before running out of real estate at the finish line.
Although Ranfranz made up a lot of ground and was closing in, it would not be enough as Robinson claimed victory with his time of 24:50. Ranfranz finished in second place at 25:03, and Shaun Oflynn placed third with his time of 30:04.
Debbie Wylie topped the women’s field with her time of 30:25, while Lori Montgomery and Rebecca DeWhirst claimed the next two spots with their times of 31:01 and 32:11 respectively.
Fourteen-year old Alec Ankrum once again defended his title in the Mighty Mouse 1-Mile Scamper with his speedy time of 6:01 – an improvement of 20 seconds from last year. Ankrum’s younger brother, 11-year old Aiden, also improved by 23-seconds with his time of 6:36 for second place, and Kyle Ignacio kept it close for third at 6:54.
Xitlalitl Reyes easily won the women’s division with her time of 7:14, with Alexis Leao outpacing Tehani Grace, 8:57 to 8:59 respectively.
“It was wonderful watching the waves crashing on the shore and I thought it was really beautiful,” Moyher said of the course. “I’m shooting for a 3:04 (finish time) at this next marathon so it was nice to be able to do this race. The heat and humidity was definitely a challenge and there were guys on the way out that I was struggling to keep up with, but I kept with the mantra of just running my own race.”
Coming Up
Sunday: Team Mango will host the 34th Annual Captain Cook Challenge featuring a 1-mile swim across Kealakekua Bay, followed by 2.5-mile trail run, a 28-mile hilly bike, and finishing off with a 4-mile run. The event will begin at 7 a.m. at Kealakekua Bay. For more info and registration details visit teammangoraces.com, or contact Carl Koomoa at 324-7252.
