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by Jason Dietrich
For a second year, it threatened to rain on Redondo's biggest parade. But almost 9,000 runners, rollers and walkers braved the drizzle to take part in the 22nd Annual Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K.
Philip Kemei, a Kenyan Olympic hopeful won the men's 10K (6.2-mile) race by an easy seven seconds (29:42) over Olympic Marathon contender Peter Whitehead of Great Britain. Kemei's time was nearly two minutes slower than his personal best of 27:31.
"It was pretty easy," said the Rift Valley native. "We were running into the wind, which slowed us down."
"The track had a lot of turns, which also slows down the runners," added Martin Franklin, Kemei's manager.
Kemei was ranked 11th in the world for the 10K in 1998 and was the world Junior Cross-Country champion in 1994. For the race's first five miles, he paced Whitehead but broke away in the final stretch. Kemei won $1000 and will continue his training next week by running a half marathon in Puerto Rico.
The woman's 10K was won by former Redondo Beach resident Kimberly Fitchen. She beat her closest rival, Jenny Crain of Chula Vista, by 21 seconds.
"I got out front right away and I was able to keep the pace up. That's how I like to run," said 31-year-old Fitchen who has been competing in the Redondo 10K for eight years. She started running competitively four years ago and finished second in '98 and '99.
"My time for the race, 32:59, is a personal best for me both on the road and on the track. This will help build my confidence going into an Olympic year," said Fitchen who hopes to compete for team USA.
Jess Strutzel, 22, a UCLA runner who fell seven seconds short of breaking a four-minute mile, his race goal, won the men's mile. Strutzel, who got off to an early start, fell behind as Hector Torres of Mexico took the lead by the half-mile mark. Strutzel managed to pull ahead of Torres by the finish line and beat him by three seconds. In training for the Olympics trials, Strutzel hopes to break a 1:44 in the 800-meters and make the US team. Last year he beat Olympic medallist and Pan Am champ John Gray in the LA indoor 800-meter.
Lyudmila Vasilyeva, a 40-year-old native of Russia, won the woman's mile in 4:45. She took an early lead but fought with half-miler Vicky Lynch Pounds for the rest of the race. Coming into the finish line, they were neck and neck. But a last-minute sprint pushed Vasilyeva across the finish line a second ahead of Pounds.
"This race is tough, because you can see the finish line for so long. Psychologically, it's very demanding," said Vasilyeva.
But of the nearly 9,000 people who participated in the day's events, only a fraction were running competitively. Most of the participants seemed more interested in gauging their progress against their own bests and catching up with friends after the race in the Asahi beer tent than vying for first place.
"This was my 2nd year running, and I cut off about 19 minutes off my time. Last year I cramped up, but this year I was fine until a little after the 5-mile marker," said Steve Lidell of Hermosa Beach, who trained by running three miles a day in the sand. "You see a lot of people that you haven't seen in months. During the summer, you see these people on the beach. This is one of the only times during the winter that you get this many people together," Lidell said.
"It was my first time running, but I saw a lot of people from my gym here," said Kirk Anglin of Torrance who ran the 5K in 23:24.
But not everyone beat his or her previous best. For more than a few weekend warriors, the Redondo race is a reminder of how far they still have to go.
"The race course runs right by my house, so every year I get woken up anyway. I figure I might as well run it," said Sean Ryan of Hermosa Beach. "But it seems like every year I've been losing about five minutes off of my time. Four years ago I ran it in 40 minutes. This year it took over an hour. My girlfriend beat me."
"I used to run track, but that was about five years ago. Eventually I want to run a marathon, so this is my first step getting back into it," said Eric Rowe as he cued up a mix of house music on his Walkman.
Also running to the beat was Paris Middle school student Kelly Workman. Before the race, Workman had trouble tuning in a radio station where the DJ wasn't talking.
"I've run this race about seven or eight times, but this is only our second year running together," said her father Jack Workman.
"If you don't count the times I was in the stroller," Kelly added, flashing her red and blue fingernails, painted to match the runners' complementary T-shirts.
As the gun sounded, the pros and front runners took off on the loop that would take them through the cities of Hermosa and Redondo Beach and back to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Everyone else started with a leisurely walk as runners filed over the carpeted computer sensor that would register their time before they spread out on the city streets. A computer chip run through competitors' shoelaces electronically identified each runner.
"This system is used in most of the big marathons like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. But it's very, very new in 10K races, where the runners finish much closer together. It's very innovative," said race publicist Don Franken.
But the system appeared to have its drawbacks. The first race was delayed about fifteen minutes as sensors were relocated.
"That, in turn, delayed the start of all the other races," said Mark Conte, owner of Conte Productions, the event's organizers.
"This was our first year using the computer, and we still have to work some of the bugs out. Next year we'll leave more time between events," Conte said. "But by all indications it was a very successful event. There wasn't much [of the complimentary] beer left, and that's always a good sign."
Traditionally, the race's first event is the costume contest. Runners dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse were present, as was a kilted Mel Gibson sort-of-look-alike garbed as the blue-faced William Wallace from the movie "Braveheart."
"Just to get out there you have to have a brave heart," said Wallace, also known as Louis Pastor, who has run 18 out of the 22 Redondo Beach 10K races but never before in costume.
"I'm recovering from a foot injury. So I figured I had to have an excuse for a poor time. This way I could say, 'Hey, I was wearing a kilt. What do you expect?'" Pastor said.
Teams raced as a gang of Madonnas, each representing a different stage in the pop star's career, as well as rival gangs of spiders and butterflies. A squad of super heroes including "Captain Valentine" in a bright pink unitard, the "pot-bellied flash" and a young man who had a carpet of back hair but dressed as Wonder Woman outfit was definitely the most colorful crew. Three racers chose to competed as drum-beating "Energizer Bunnies" and another team dressed in Capri pants and cats-eye sunglasses and warmed up for the run by doing some swing dancing.
But the costume contest had a serious side. Robin Charin and Mark Ferris, who this year dressed in 1920s beach costumes, met two years ago at the 10K. She was dressed as Napoleon. They're now engaged to be married.
On the street, where it really mattered, the spiders ended getting a leg (or two) up on the butterflies and finished in front.
"We were at a disadvantage; they told us we'd be disqualified if we used our wings," said butterfly Sandra Binder.