By FRED KRONER
Kyle Nofziger ran a race on Saturday (Aug. 7) that didn’t provide instant gratification.
The Mahomet-Seymour senior-to-be was one of the participants in the annual RunMahomet event, a fundraiser for the Mahomet Area Youth Club which concludes with a half-marathon race.
When the teen-ager completed the 13.1-mile course, he knew his time, but his placement wasn’t obvious.
“I had no idea,” Nofziger said.
In an effort to reduce the number of competitors congregating around the starting line, groups were assigned different starting times several minutes apart.
Nofziger’s day didn’t start well.
“I was supposed to be in the first wave (of runners),” he said, “but I missed it.”
His day ended much better.
Nofziger’s time of 1 hour, 17 minutes and 52.8 seconds resulted in him winning the race.
Though he had been training throughout the summer for the start of the high school cross-country season – practice begins on Monday (Aug. 9) – Nofziger didn’t expect to be one of the top finishers.
“I was going out to have fun, run and support MAYC,” he said. “I figured I’d be running anyway today, and this was a way to get my run in.”
Nofziger had company throughout the first 9 miles of the race. M-S classmate Joseph Scheele helped him establish what Nofziger called “a pretty good pace.”
Each athlete has had training runs in excess of the 13.1-mile distance they ran on Saturday, but the half-marathon was the longest actual race to date for both Nofziger and Scheele.
“We ran together and talked a lot,” Nofziger said. “It’s good to have someone push me. If there wasn’t someone there, I couldn’t have run that fast.”
For the entire race, Nofziger ran a 5:56 mile pace.
“I was feeling good,” he said, “and this was affirmation I’ve done the work and am in the shape I’d like to be right now.”
The off-season training was different this year for all high school athletes. Due to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the high school track season didn’t end until late June, about a month later than what has been the custom in previous years.
“It cut out about a month (of summer workouts), but it hasn’t been too hard of a transition,” Nofziger said. “The (high school) team has been running together and it’s going good.”
Scheele said the group runs have been beneficial.
“We try our best to get into the group,” Scheele said. “It’s easy to drop out if you’re not in the group.”
Nofziger and Scheele will set their minds to the 3-mile cross-country distance now.
“I like the 3-mile distance,” Nofziger said. “It’s a good mix of endurance and speed.”
Scheele, in his first half-marathon, placed fifth overall with a time of 1 hour, 21 minutes and 39.5 seconds.
Scheele said he had “no expectations,” for his debut in the 13.1-mile race.
In retrospect, he said, “I probably took the race out a little too fast. At the end, my pace was significantly slower.”
Scheele’s overall pace was 6:14 per mile.
As for the upcoming high school cross-country season, Scheele would like to make it memorable
“I hope to have a season I can look back on and be proud of,” Scheele said.
Neither Nofziger nor Scheele has narrowed down where they would like to run in college.
***
Mahomet’s Bonnie Anderson has been training for a marathon, and opted to use the Saturday (Aug. 7) RunMahomet half-marathon as a gauge for her progress.
She ran her fastest time ever for the 13.1-mile distance and was the women’s overall winner. She was timed in 1 hour, 42 minutes and 29.5 seconds.
Her margin of victory was nearly 5 minutes.
“I’m pretty satisfied,” Anderson said. “I’m happy with it.”
And yet, it was not the time she was seeking as she continues training for her debut in the full marathon in October, in Ashland, Wis.
“I’m trying to qualify for Boston,” the mother of seven said.
To achieve that goal, for her age group, her half-marathon time needs to be in the neighborhood of 1 hour and 38 minutes.
Considering her training interruptions in July, Anderson may be able to close the gap.
“We had a hard month,” she said.
There was a family vacation to Utah – where the family lived before moving to Mahomet about six years ago – followed by a trip that had stops in Spain, France and Italy.
Still, she completed the Mahomet course with an average per-mile time of 7:49.
Anderson and her husband, Shad – who won his age division in the Mahomet half-marathon that serves as a fund-raiser for the Mahomet Area Youth Club – work out together.
“We run at the Lake of the Woods almost every day,” Bonnie Anderson said.
The scenery – and elevation – is different than what she had grown accustomed to.
“I grew up in Utah and was used to hills and mountains,” she said.
The Andersons don’t work out by themselves.
“It’s really motivating to have friends that get you up every morning,” Bonnie Anderson said.
Her path to qualifying for the Boston Marathon this year could be trickier than in years past. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 race was not held and many previous qualifiers opted not to run in the rescheduled 2021 Boston race (on Oct. 11), but instead defer their entry until next April.
“With so many people putting it off, it will be a hard qualifying year,” Bonnie Anderson said, “but it’s reachable.”
She is in recovery mode after completing her sixth half-marathon.
“I have blisters on my heel and toe that I noticed in Mile 9,” she said.
Shad Anderson, who will soon turn 40, is also working towards a goal of running in Boston.
The runner-up in the women’s division was Bloomington’s Josey Allison (1:47.20.7) and the third-place finisher was Seymour’s Kristy Powell (1:48.17.8).
A limited spectator turnout was one of the downsides of Mahomet’s version of the 2021 event.
“There were not a lot of spectators,” Bonnie Anderson said, “but there were a lot of people at the water stations.”
***
Eighteen-year-old Hayden Colclasure came back to Mahomet for the summer and had a successful return to running in the community where he lived until junior high school.
He was the overall winner of the 5-kilometer race on Friday in the annual RunMahomet event that is a fund-raiser for the Mahomet Area Youth Club.
Colclasure’s time was 15 minutes, 49.2 seconds.
The upcoming Olivet Nazarene University freshman runner had a one-part goal in mind: He wanted to get his name before the public.
“I planned on winning and I wanted to have a little showcase,” said Colclasure, whose summer training regime consists of putting in 70 miles per week. “I wanted to prove myself and get my name out there.”
He accomplished his goal, winning the race by 40.3 seconds over Champaign’s Joshua Hinds. Colclasure’s mile pace was 5:06.
Finishing third in the RunMahomet 5K was Mahomet’s Brian Bundren (17:05.1).
With the NCAA this summer permitting collegiate athletes to benefit financially from their name, image or likeness (NIL), Colclasure is looking for opportunities.
“It’s a new path, a scary path,” Colclasure said. “I’m reaching out to companies and talking to people. I’d rather be approached, but I’m no Usain Bolt.
“We’re trying to figure it out on our own.”
After leaving the M-S district, Colclasure had a star-studded career at Elgin’s Harvest Christian.
He was a member of the IESA eighth-grade state championship cross-country team. As a freshman, he was the eighth runner on the Class 1A third-place state cross-country entry.
His school was bumped up to Class 2A his sophomore year and did not qualify for state, but a year later was back in 1A and placed second in the cross-country state finals.
Colclasure’s senior cross-country season was officially voided by the COVID-19 pandemic after the sectional, but the state coaches association conducted an unofficial state meet, which Harvest Christian won.
Colclasure was the No. 2 runner for the school at sectionals as a sophomore, junior and senior.
Colclasure topped off his track career with a runner-up medal in the 800-meter run (1:57.76) and third-place finishes with the 1,600- and 3,200-meter relays, which helped Harvest Christian secure the team championship by 13 points in June, 2021.
Colclasure, the anchor runner on the 3,200 relay, is confident that the best is yet to come.
“Running is my purpose and I have big aspirations with my running,” he said. “I’d be a good investment (for companies looking for a spokesman).”
Colclasure has been running in the Mahomet event since he was 6 years old.
“I ran with my mom the first year and my time was 27:30,” he recalled. “Mahomet has had a big part in my running career.”
In the girls’ division of the 5K, Mahomet runners swept the top three spots with 12-year-old Taylor Mills emerging as the winner. Her time was 21 minutes, 26.9 seconds, a per-mile pace of 6:55.
Following her were 14-year-old Chloe Bundren (22:15.0) and 12-year-old Anniston Huff (22:30.4).
***
Jordan Rock did a lot of running in the fall for Mahomet-Seymour when he was in high school.
He would sprint a few yards at a time. He was a running back on the football team and amassed 1,153 all-purpose yards as a senior. After playing basketball in the winter, he would join the track and field team in the spring.
Rock was a sprinter and earned an IHSA state medal as a senior with the fourth-place 1,600-meter relay in 2013.
“In high school, the longest distance I ran (competitively) was 400 meters,” Rock said. “One practice, we went 3 miles and we all thought that was extremely hard.”
On Saturday (Aug. 7), Rock ran for more than 80 minutes in succession and covered 13.1 miles.
He was among the participants in the annual RunMahomet half-marathon race, which is a benefit for the Mahomet Area Youth Club.
Rock, who works at Fisher National Bank in Mahomet, has not only grown to love distance running, the races are ones in which he excels.
He was the fourth-place overall finisher on Saturday, covering the distance in a personal-best 1 hour, 21 minutes and 3.5 seconds.
When COVID-19 prompted various race organizers to shut down their events in 2020, Rock didn’t immediately stop training.
“I was set to run the Chicago Marathon in the fall (of 2020),” Rock said, “and it was one of the last to cancel.”
He continued to work out until mid-September of last year, when a partial tear of an Achilles tendon forced him to take a nearly five-month break from running.
“I still got on the bike and did some ellipticals,” Rock said. “It wasn’t like I was doing nothing.”
When he got back into running, it was with the supervision of a coach.
“I’ve been running for eight years (since graduating from M-S in 2013), but I’ve learned so much these last few months,” Rock said.
He originally caught the running bug as a way to stay active.
“After I graduated, I wondered, ‘How am I going to stay fit?’” Rock said. “It seemed like a natural fit to sign up for some local 5Ks.”
He competed in those races, but quickly learned he wanted more challenges.
“I’d finish those and realized I wanted to keep running,” Rock said. “I was jealous of the people running the half-marathon.”
He altered his training so he could handle the 13.1-mile distance of the half-marathons.
“The same thing happened after running the half-marathons,” Rock said. “I wanted to keep running.”
That prompted an increase to the full, 26.2-mile, marathons. He has completed two of those, with his best time of 2 hours and 52 minutes coming at Indianapolis in 2019.
Rock became self-aware of another feeling after running that distance.
“After the full, I was no longer jealous (of the people running longer distances),” Rock said. “I can’t imagine running 50 miles at a time, but I’ll never say never.”
What he can imagine is a feat he hopes to accomplish within about the next three years.
He is targeting the Abbott World Marathon Majors, which are three prominent domestic and three prominent international marathons.
“It’s a big dream and a lofty goal, but I would like to run all six consecutively,” Rock said.
He will get started this October with the Chicago Marathon. He has already qualified for the 2022 Boston Marathon (by virtue of his 2:52 time at Indianapolis) and hopes to qualify for the New York Marathon in the fall of 2022.
There will be another challenge besides dropping his time to about 2:45.
“I’ve never been out of the country before, but hopefully it will be three great experiences,” Rock said.
If possible, he would like to compete in either the London Marathon or the Tokyo Marathon in the spring of 2023, followed by the Berlin Marathon in the fall of that year. Whichever race he doesn’t do in the spring of 2023, he hopes to pick up in the spring of 2024.
The 26-year-old Rock remembers clearly his attitude about running during his early teen-aged years.
“I looked at runners as crazy,” he said. “I thought of running distances as boring.
“As a senior, I absolutely could not have imagined doing this.”
And now, he can’t imagine not doing it.
“I’m excited with where my running career is going,” Rock said. “I’m challenging myself and keeping myself healthy.”
***
Race director Marla Dewhirst introduced several changes for the 2021 RunMahomet races.
The 5-kilometer race was moved to Friday, the 10-kilometer race was canceled, there were no relay events and the half-marathon started with different waves to keep large groups of people from gathering simultaneously at the starting line.
“We started the plan when we were in a different level of COVID,” Dewhirst said. “Once you announce something, you can’t jump off mid-stream.
“I stuck with the guidelines we were given by Public Health, a no contact, hybrid race.”
The port-a-pottys that were available were facing alternating directions, again to help limit the number of people who would be gathering in lines within six feet beside each other.
A lot of changes were figured out during the process of preparing for the race.
“There isn’t any science for coming back from the pandemic,” Dewhirst said.
There was also no awards ceremony in 2021 and no race day registration.
“The day-of-race registration attracts fast runners,” Dewhirst said. “At times, we’ve picked up over 50 (day-of-race runners).”
This year, the registrations were closed at 5 p.m. three days before the Saturday race.
“We knew it would be a hard year to come back,” Dewhirst said. “All in all, we did OK.
“I’m assured people were safe and it went over well as far as all of that.”
Also for this year, there were not different styles of shirts available, but one for all runners, regardless of the race in which they competed. The medals were also the same and the top age-group runners did not receive prizes like they did in the past.
“First place got a steel-engraved, 16-ounce (hot/cold) mug,” Dewhirst said.
The overall race winners received a gift certificate to Body N Sole Sports, in Savoy.
In 2019 (the last year the race was run), there were 486 total entries, covering four races.
There were fewer total entries this year, 140 for Friday’s 5-kilometer race and 103 for Saturday’s half-marathon.
Dewhirst was not surprised.
“Our trend is no different from other races,” she said. “Races are down 30 to 50 percent (nationally) across the board.”
There was also the option for runners to do a virtual race (outside of the race-day location) and that brought the total entries to 278 for this year.
Dewhirst received mostly positive feedback from the participants.
“The runners who were ready to come back (to racing) were happy to be here,” Dewhirst said.
She expects the virtual option to be available in future years, though she pointed out, “you had to run (in the event at Mahomet) to be a winner.”
This was Year 26 for the RunMahomet event, though the 25th (in 2020) was entirely virtual.
OVERALL RACE LEADERS
Men’s 5K
1.Hayden ColclasureWinner15:49.2
2J.oshua Hinds30-3916:29.5
3.Brian Bundren40-4917:05.1
Women’s 5K
1Taylor MillsWinner21:26.9
2Chloe Bundren11-1422:15.0
3Anniston Huff11-1422:30.4
Men’s Half-Marathon
1Kyle NofzigerWinner1:17:52.8
2Will Gravelle20-291:19:03.4
3Matthew Gagen20-291:19:53.2
Women’s Half Marathon
1Bonnie AndersonWinner1:42:29.5
2Josey Allison20-291:47:20.7
3Kristy Powell40-491:48:17.8
