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Press Release 'Boston Billy' Graces Race Famous marathon runner competes in Gaithersburg 5K Bill Rodgers, the only person to win the Boston and New York City marathons four times each, was the toast of the town at the Kentlands/Lakelands 5K Saturday. It was break-a-record day at the Kentlands/Lakelands 5K race in Gaithersburg Saturday morning, but most of the fanfare went to a man who finished back in the pack. On a day when the top three men and the top two women beat the respective course records, Bill Rodgers was the toast of the Kentlands/Lakelands town despite finishing 3 minutes, 17 seconds behind the leader. Silver Spring resident Ben Cooke, 25, was the men's winner, smashing Troy Harry's one-year-old course record by 34 seconds in 14:52. On the women's side, 19-year-old Atalelech Ketema of Washington, D.C., a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, was the women's winner with a time of 16:51, beating the one-year-old female mark of 17:14 by Naoko Ishibe. But most of the spotlight went to Rodgers, the 54-year-old American marathon icon who was making a paid appearance Saturday and finished 51st in 18:09 with a sore Achilles' tendon. "This is great fun," Rodgers said, just prior to making a short speech at the post-race awards ceremony and signing autographs. "There's a lot of young people here. That's a good sign. It brings everyone into a city, races do. I wanted to run a little faster today. This is the slowest 5K I've ever run." Rodgers, a resident of Sherborn, Mass., etched his name in the American distance-running pantheon three decades ago by winning the elite Boston and New York City marathons four times each. |
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Nicknamed "Boston Billy" for his four wins in Beantown between 1975 and 1980, Rodgers also won in New York from 1976 to 1979, becoming the only runner to ever win both prestigious races four times. He also competed in the 1976 Olympics, set an American marathon record of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 27 seconds in 1975, and was highly instrumental in pushing U.S.A. Track and Field to allow official cash prizes for races, starting with the Cascade Runoff in Portland, Ore., in 1981. Rodgers continues to remain very active in the running community, competing in 22-25 races per year. Saturday's race was his 17th this year. Earlier this year, he won the over-50 division in the 7.1-mile Falmouth Road Race in Cape Cod. He'd won the open division of the race in 1974, 1977 and 1978. He also runs the Bill Rodgers Running Center in Massachusetts with his brother, Charlie, writes books on running, and has hosted the charitable Jingle Bell Run in December for the past 26 years. Rodgers first learned of the Kentlands/Lakelands 5K when he met Martin Horan, a Kentlands resident who is on the race's organizing committee, at this year's Cherry Blossom 10-miler in Washington on April 6. He arrived in town on Wednesday, worked out with the Montgomery County Road Runners Club at Richard Montgomery High in Rockville that evening and spoke at various public schools throughout the county on Thursday and Friday. "I would love to come back to this race," Rodgers said. "Running is a lifetime sport. You can tell that by the kids here and some of the runners who are older than me. We're all having fun out here. That's the No. 1 thing." Notes: Male runner-up Kyle Smits of Washington, D.C., also broke the old course record in a time of 15:03, as did Arlington, Va., resident Michael Warsian (third place, 15:14). Female runner-up Heather Hanscom of Alexandria, Va., topped the old women's mark in 17:09. by Joshua Cooley |
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