Valentine's Twosome 2008

by Jeff Arnold Jeff

Valentine's Story

A strange thing happened while I was marking the course for the 2008 Valentines Twosome. 25 couples signed up for the race. Luckily Paulette Arns and Shawn Lopnow took care of that. There was quite a bit of speculation that this was the biggest Valentines race ever. Ever in this case goes back pretty far in club history. The records on the SCR web site only go back to 2000, however, and this was the biggest in that period. We had 38 couples compared to 32 in 2007. That’s even more impressive since only seven couples returned, though several individuals returned with different partners.

Others suggested that this was the fastest ever time by the overall winners. Anna Marshall and Mike Schmidt won by more than a minute and a half over the second place team with a time of 19:11, but fell short of the record of 18:57 set by Jenna Bimbi and Caanan Vajello in 2002. Jenna was a state cross country champion and for a time had the 4A state record in the 800 meters in 2:11. Still Anna and Mike are sophomore and junior respectively at Pueblo West High School and will have another shot next year if they choose.

Along with the five Khoslas, Pueblo West High School provided the bulk of the younger runners. Jordan Montera teaming with his mom as a last minute replacement for food poisoned Lauren Dunsmoor, was on the third place team. Jennifer and Mike Cernoia were 40 seconds back in fourth place which isn’t bad considering Jennifer is an eighth-grader. Jamen and Justin Cox each had high school age partners, Kateland Gonzales and Lyndsi McDermott respectively but I’m not certain they’re Cyclones.

Carol and Chuck Smead from Mosca had one of the most impressive performances, finishing fifth overall, first in their division, with a time of 21:59. That’s about a 6:40 per mile average time for the two of them. Carol is 56 and Chuck 58. Of course Carrie Slover and Michael Orendorff at 22:51 were very good as well. This year the 101-129 age division had three of the top eight places with Stacey and Dave Diaz finishing in 23:40.

At the other end of the age scale we had a 21 year old pair, Brannen Berta and Tanner Snyder, and Rachel Kleiner and Zane Khosla. We had six couples under 40, including the overall winners.

It was a family day with at least eighteen couples being related to each other, by marriage or otherwise, not to mention babies serving as batons. Hilbert Navarro ran with his granddaughter, Alyssa Bruce.

It was sunny and still for he race but probably never got much above freezing. Still it was a fun day and probably faster than Valentines in July.

I want to end by thinking all the volunteers who are noted on the results, but especially Paulette Arns, who did everything, and well too

Jeff Arnold