by Carl Pegels, Race Director Emeritus
Ultrarunning is still alive in the Western New York area. This year’s 6-hour race is in its 35th year. The first ultra race in Buffalo was a 50-mile race in 1980, which has since changed to the 6-hour format. The current race director, Sue Devlin has been doing an excellent job directing the race with the help of an able group of volunteers.
The race is on a paved biking/walking trail and can thus be considered a trail race.
Although the race was scheduled a few weeks earlier in the year than normal the weather cooperated. After a long, cold and snowy winter we were fortunate to have a good day to run the 6-hour distance run.
A total of 94 runners toed the line at the start and 36 finished the race in the ultra-distance of over 26.2 miles. We had 11 women who completed the ultra-distance, probably the largest number ever for this race.
We had a quality field both in the male and female categories. Daniel-Mark Seigers completed 45.4 miles, which is a good distance for this type of run.
Todd Baum came in second place overall and completed 42.8 miles, which was an excellent performance since he was competing in the 50-59 year age category.
Danielle Cherniak, the overall women’s winner in 41.2 miles had an excellent run. She came in third place overall. She did have some competition because the second place women’s runner, Renee Hoover completed 38.9 miles and the third place women’s runner, Marylou Corino, completed 38.5 miles.
There were a few speedsters who kept the front-runners on their toes. But as the day went on the top runners outlasted the speedsters.
Based on past experience we had a good field. Four runners completed in excess of 40 miles and 25 runners completed in excess of 30 miles.
Next year’s 6-hour BPAC distance classic will again be scheduled for April but probably a bit later in the month.