Wednesday, May 16, 2007

GEAR Men, RNF Women Lead Team Circuit

"If everyone from GEAR shows up they will be hard to beat," Run N Fun men's captain Kelly Mortenson told DtB ahead of last weekend's New Prague Half Marathon.

He knew his squad would lack a few of its top runners for the third race of the 2007 USATF - Minnesota Team Circuit.

He was right about GEAR.

Powered by top-5, sub-1:10 performances by race winner Pete Gilman, Pat Russell, and Josh Metcalf, the team formerly known as "Defending Team Circuit Champions Runners Edge" beat their rivals by more than eight minutes and broke the tie atop the Circuit standings.

GEAR now sports a two point lead in Circuit standings -- 57 to 55 over RNF. Lundgren Ford is third with 45 points.

On the women's side, Run N Fun broke their own tie atop the women's standings with GEAR by a big margin. Erin Ward, Angie Voight, and Melissa Gacek finished 1-3-4 in the event to lead RNF to their own 8+ minute victory.

RNF's women now leads the Circuit 29-27 over GEAR with the Prairie Striders sitting third with 17 points.

Full Team Circuit standings can be found HERE. The next event on the eight-race tour is the Brian Kraft Memorial 5K at Lake Nokomis on May 28.

(Full disclosure: I'm a seldom-competing member of the Lundgren Ford masters team.)

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