San Marcos — Last week San Antonio hosted the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon and Half Marathon with roughly 26,000 runners.

Talking with some of the area runners, it was a tough day for a run as the weather was warm and humid. The winning finishers for the most part came from Kenya (top 10 of 22) and Ethiopia. Evidently the weather did not bother them.

Looking over some of the finishers and where they came from, it seemed about one half came from Austin and San Antonio. There was a good turnout from our area runners also.

Looking at San Marcos, Kyle, Buda and Wimberley, the numbers represented central Texas very well.

In the full marathon of 3,246 runners for the men, James Hill from Buda, ran a 3:55:05 for a first place finish in the 70 -74 age category. David Donnelly of San Marcos, ran 5:03:37; Eric Rindahl of San Marcos ran 3:56:44 and Thomas Navarte of Kyle had a 4:49:38.

Marc Tickerhoof of Kyle, had a 3:58: 01; Carlos Castilla of Maxwell, ran a 4:08:47; Derek Matlock of Wimberley, had a 4:08:25; Shane Burke of Wimberley, ran 4:14;04; Peter Arcidiacono of Wimberley ran a 4:36:09 and San Marcos’ Randy Villapondo had a 5:13:06.

Other San Marcos runners included Steven Thompson at 5:17:56; Aaron Contreras at 5:17:58; Joe Medina ran in at 5:19:57 and Eddie Quinonez ran his first marathon in 5:25:05.

In the full marathon, it seemed that if you came close to the five-hour mark you were in the top 50 percent of the runners.

For the women, the full marathon featured 2,567 runners, local entrants included Whitney Perkins at 3:12:26; Gina Eben ran a 4:45:53; Silvia Clark ran a 5:14:50; Jennifer Hernandez had a 5:31:12, Lisa Medina ran in at 5:41:32 and Laura Mason had a 5:54:47 finish time.

Because of the number of runners in the half marathon distance, it would be hard to include all of the names in one column. Just for the women entrants the number of women that ran the half marathon was 12,585 runners.

Area runners from San Marcos included: Nicole Nuckols in a nice time of 1:50:22; Krista Betzing in 1:55:05; Kaitlin Simmons ran a 2:01:18; Kaily David ran a 2:02:58; Kara Olson had a 2:04:13; and Angie Burke had a 2:12:05. Nelda Pannell walked a fast pace to finish in 2:59:23.

There may have been other local runners but I managed to look at the top 3,000 and will try to pick up others next week.

Area women runners from Wimberley included Debbie Belvin in 1:57:17 and Laura Crawford in 2:12:51. Buda women runners had Liz Shelton running a fast 1:24:03 for a seventh place overall. Colleen Reutbach ran a 2:01;24; Amy Urbanovsky at 2:03:45; Stephanie Sandoval ran a 2:12:51; Andrea Russo ran in at 2:15:33 and Angel Delcueto ran a 2:16:39.

Kyle women runners included Julie Brooks in a good 1:50:28; Elizabeth Montoya in 2:12:48; Amanda Simon in 2:13:56; Angie Jones had a 2:01:40; Liliana Salazar ran a 2:03:45; and Rebecca Dahse ran in at 2:07:17.

I glanced at a few of the top finishers for the men in the half marathon and saw that Jeffery Shelton from Buda ran a 1:16:33 that was good for 27th overall out of 7,435 runners.

Looks like the Sheltons from Buda make a very fast running team.

Robert Seibert from Kyle had a 1:28: 53 time that was good also.

Since the numbers are so large it may take me some time to work my way through the results but I will try to find some more area runners for next week, especially in the men’s half marathon results.



Dr. Maurice Johnson is an instructor at Texas State University in the Department of Sports and Exercise Science. His column appears every Sunday in the Daily Record.