St. Patrick’s Day Parade Run brings out best of St. Louis
Start of the St. Patrick's Day Parade Run. Dave Luecking Photo
Winner Ben Rosario said it best after his second St. Patrick’s Day 5-mile Parade Run victory.
“When you’re running down the street and you see 9,000 people behind you, that really pumps you up.”
Looking over his shoulder, Rosario could see a record field filled with leprechauns, potatoes, tons of green face paint, wigs and an inordinately large number of guys who had borrowed their daughters’ field-hockey skirts.
He spent most of the race, though, tucked behind the shoulder of Zac Freudenburg of the 180 Energy Runners. ” I looked at my watch and saw it was 23:18 and decided it was time to go,” he said.
Ben Rosario (right) checks his watch before surging past Zac Freudenburg to victory. Dave Luecking photo
Rosario finished in 24:11, two seconds ahead of Freudenburg. Brian Lyons, race director for GO! St. Louis and the defending champ, was third.
Rosario said he wasn’t sure until Wednesday whether to run. He was recovering from the indoor season, and his two Big River stores have been hoppin’. He’s put in a couple 15-hour days but had a good workout of 1,000 repeats with Carter Snow and decided to give the race a go.
Frudenburg finished second for the fourth straight year, but he has bigger goals. He’s a member of the U.S. mountian running team and will be competing with them. Freudenburg also has entered the GO! Marathon, so he’s more focused on distance than speed right now.
Now that he’s won St. Pat’s, Rosario will head to Chicago for its St. Pat’s run in two weeks. OK, so it’s nowhere near the official day, but the weather there is more likely to be decent. After that, he’s says he’s planning a second Festival of Miles in May and hopes to attract a field that can run the first sub-four minute outdoor mile in Missouri since 1961.
Rosario said he was in the lead pack with Lyons and Freudenburg for the first couple miles. Lyons dropped back, and Rosario stayed on Freudenburg’s shoulder for the next 2½ miles.
“I know he’s in great shape now,” Rosario said. “I used his fitness.
The first woman to cross the line was Francine Nzilampa, a member of the cross country and track teams at Lindenwood University. A native of the Congo whose family lives in Paris, Nzilampa finished in 28:36. Maggie Conley and Julie Lossos were second and third, respectively.
Race and parade co-chair Jim Crowe said he was “awestruck by the site of more than 9,500 runners.”
The results page isn’t the most user-friendly, but here’s a link.
Personal victory: finished faster than my age.
(9 votes, average: 4.56 out of 5)
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First, for j wats: In the immediate aftermath of a race, determining the age division winners is sometimes difficult. Sometimes, they do not stick around for the awards ceremony. This was the case with Francine Nzilampa, the women’s winner. If she had been there, I would have interviewed her. I made an effort to contact her throughout the afternoon but didn’t receive a response. That’s the reason that the first thing in the post is a link to the results, so you can check it out for yourself.
It just so happened that these guys were 1 and 2 this year. Perhaps we’ll have a surprise winner at the GO! marathon and we can hear someone else’s story.
Second, for Jim Hinkle: Each runner fills out a registration form that asks for his or her age. After the overall results are compiled, they are sorted by age, in groups of five years: 20 and under, 21-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and so forth. Each is a separate division for results. The top 10 in each division of the St. Pat’s run earn medals.
Thanks Kathleen for the response, Jim Hinkle poroved my point though, older runners and female runners train and run just as hard, not as fast because we are older or female, and go unrecognized………
You said it yourself, you can view the top ten in each age group, why not do an article and just publish the top ten in each age group? I am not saying you have to do a story on every runner, I am saying do something for the general point of the race.
This race is a DIVISIONAL MEET(STL surrounding area) of sorts amongst runners in each division, we work and train hard all year for this race, knowing the best will show up, when we are there on that morning we are looking around a tour competition, sizing them up, wondering how hard they trained and how we will compare to them this year.
I believe you are missing many points of the race when you do an article only about the winners, I love these guys, Ben contributes to this community tremendously as does Zac, there great, but there is much more to this race for many runners, that is my point. Thank you for the coverage you did provide, the pic of Ben and Zac is awesome……..