Race Report: Boulevard Bolt 2003

11.28.03 words by Dave Milner | photos by Keely Weaver

Matt Pulle had won the previous two Boulevard Bolts in fairly convincing fashion, but yesterday he knew that he would have his hands full, since this year's Thanksgiving Day 5-miler promised to have a loaded men's field, and he knew also the other runners collectively wanted to dethrone him.

Last year, the race raised over $80,000 for charities that aid the needy and homeless. The race organizers' aim for this year was to raise over $100,000. Over 6000 runners and walkers lined up on a rain-soaked Belle Meade Boulevard yesterday morning for this 10th annual race.

For the usually over-vigilant Belle Meade cops, Thanksgiving Day is, I'm sure, the only day when they turn a blind eye to scantily-clad, slightly-nuts folk from other zip codes going #1 in the bushes behind a Baptist church and/or going #2 among the foliage of some distant corner of a 2-million-dollar home's front lawn. Although I can't divulge the exact locations of my crimes - I think the real culprits were the coffee and the pre-race nerves - I had plenty of nearby company on both occasions!

Aside from Pulle, local standouts Chris Demetra and Chris Kennedy were running. Belmont University runner Brad Polley laced up after taking a break following the cross-country season. Eric Legros, the first local runner at the Country Music Marathon the last three years, was running. And two Vanderbilt medical school classmates, David Ritsema and Bob Thiele were to toe the line too. Ritsema is a 2002 graduate of Calvin College (in Michigan), an NCAA Division II running powerhouse. Thiele [pronounced "Thee-lee"] is a 2001 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he was an NCAA Division I Cross-country All-american (top 25 at nationals) and also clocked well under 30 minutes for 10K on the track. Clearly, Thiele had the best pedigree coming into yesterday's Boulevard Bolt 5-miler, but his demanding schedule meant that he hasn't been able to put in nearly as many training miles as he did while at Virginia.

"I'd say he's only been running between 25 and 30 miles a week over the last month or two," said Thiele's training and study partner, Ritsema, who finished 4th at the 2002 Bolt.

A lack of mileage didn't stop Thiele from decimating one of the deepest Boulevard Bolt fields in the race's history, as he came home the winner in 25:07, some 47 seconds clear of the next finisher.

Nashvillerunner.com had presented a pre-race poll, which featured Pulle, Demetra, Kennedy, Polley and Legros, as voting options, and a further choice, "someone else", since we weren't certain Thiele or Ritsema were definitely running. Demetra was the pre-race favorite, having received 30% of the votes. It may have been this poll that spurred Thiele on. "I won't pretend that it wasn't a factor," Thiele said, smiling, after the race.

The race started out at a fairly conservative pace, with a tight pack of ten men, including all the usual suspects, including me, going through the opening mile in around 5:18-5:19. Demetra and Kennedy headed the pack. Thiele, Ritsema, and I were side-by-side at the back of that pack.

Demetra and Kennedy dropped the pace slightly during the second mile, and that pack started to stretch out a little, but everyone was still in contact at 2 miles.

At the 180º turn at around 2.4 miles, a pack of six - comprising Demetra, Kennedy, Legros, Thiele, Polley and Pulle - was still very much together.

Upon reaching the 3-mile marker, reached in 15:36, Thiele decided he would try to pull clear. "I'm not sure when I actually got away, since I didn't look behind," Thiele said.

It was in the fourth (which is mostly uphill) and fifth (a fast descending) miles that Thiele stamped his authority on the race, breaking well clear of the other four by rattling off a 4:50 mile followed by a 4:40 closing mile. The 2nd year medical student was clearly the class of the field, coming home some 250 meters ahead of the opposition.

This left Kennedy, Demetra, Legros and Pulle - who were running in that order - to duke it out for second place. Kennedy and Demetra, running in tandem, were still looking strong at 3 miles, but "on the first incline after that mile marker," explained Legros after the race, "Demetra started slowing down and lost contact with Kennedy, so I started going after him."

Legros caught and passed Demetra at around 3.3 miles, and looked ahead to seek the other Chris starting to fade too. "I could tell he was slowing down," Legros said, "and I was still feeling good, so then I went after him."

By the 4-mile marker, Legros had passed Kennedy and was in second place. There was no chance of him catching Thiele; he was long gone. Legros' objective now was just to hold on to 2nd place. "If you're feeling good, it's pretty hard for someone to pass you in that last downhill mile," said Legros, "and I felt like I had another gear or two left if one of those guys - either Chris - came back at me."

Thiele (right), seemingly flying down the last half-mile, crossed the finish line in 25:07, having ran the last 3 miles in 14:31 (the last two in 9:31). "It was fun. I was surprised how many people showed up, given the weather conditions," said Thiele.

He seemed as surprised as anyone that he had ran so fast. "Based on the little training I had done, I was just hoping to run under 26 minutes. Looking at the previous years' results, I thought Pulle would probably win in 25:40 or thereabouts," Thiele said.

"I was really just kinda trying to find out how fast I could run off such limited training," Thiele said. "I'm so busy now, I just can't train like I did when I was in college. I just wanted to stay with everyone for as long as I could and see what happened." What happened was that, despite his sporadic training, the Charlottesville, VA native demonstrated that he was in another league yesterday.

Legros finished a comfortable 2nd, perhaps surprising everyone but himself. After an up and down 2003, he was glad to prove to everyone that he is still a force to be reckoned with. "It's about time I had a good race," he said.

Chris Demetra finished 3rd, and Matt Pulle (left), who rallied well after seemingly struggling during the third and fourth miles, passed a tiring Kennedy in the last half-mile.

Pulle has been preparing for the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, AL marathon on December 14th, but had already began tapering and was hoping to three-peat. But it wasn't to be. "I think there is a way to run well at shorter races and a marathon in the same campaign. I just haven't figured that out yet," Pulle commented.

"I had no excuses," he admits. "I just haven't done a lot of short races. I never really hurt yesterday. I just didn't have any zip. I felt like I could have run another mile at the same pace but couldn't possibly have gone faster."

"When Bob broke away at 3 miles, I should've readjusted my goal and gone for 2nd place," Pulle said. "Instead I just got demoralized and had a tough time staying mentally focused."

Chris Kennedy finished fifth, followed by Brad Polley, David Ritsema, Eric Bilbrey, and then me, clocking a 4-second P.R.

There were some impressive runs among the male masters. The first master home was 41-year-old John Brownlee, who clocked a speedy 28:11.

Franklin's Gordon Terwilliger, now 55, was the second master to finish, clocking 29:21, some two and a half minutes ahead over any other over-50 runner (apart from Vicki Crisp) despite carrying a calf injury and only deciding to run the race that morning. Tullahoma's David Benjamin, 47, was the third master, with a time of 29:50.

And 63-year-old Dallas Smith from Cookeville ran 32:26. He also was more than two minutes ahead of his nearest age-group rival, and some two and a half minutes faster than the Tennessee State single-age record for the slightly (47 meters) shorter, more-commonly contested distance of 8 kilometers.

The women's race was a much closer affair than the men's, even though Vicki Crisp (right) took the lead from the gun and never relinquishing it. She clocked 29:49. That fact alone is impressive. But remember that Vicki is 51 years old; old enough to be the mother of fast-finishing second placer Carrie Greenway, who finished just six seconds adrift.

To pit Vicki's feat into perspective, consider that she was six and a half minutes faster than the next woman over 50, Teresa Lewin, who had a solid run herself. In fact, Vicki's run was almost three minutes faster than the listed Tennessee State Record for 8K.

Crisp lives very close to the 180-degree turn just before the race's half-way point, and told Kim Swint from The Tennessean that she "felt like she had home-court advantage today."

These two were quite some way ahead of Maureen Manning (below left), who finished third in 30:34, and Cindy Price(below right), running in her first ever Boulevard Bolt, finished fourth in 31:04. For fast-improving Price, this race was just icing on the cake after capping her season off with a huge 3:04 PR in the marathon. "I still ran another huge PR, but it isn't nearly as exciting when you come in 4th place," she said after the race. Tonya Lumphrey rounded out the top 5.

The first over-40 runner, and second master to finish, was Murfreesboro's Theresa Peacock, 41, who clocked 33:11. Fourty-six year old Kathy Gagnier, visiting from Winter Park, Florida, fought her way through the drizzle to run 33:45 and be third master home.

The light drizzle that accompanied this event didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of anyone there. Although, it was far-from-ideal spectator weather, onlookers were very vocal in their support of the participants, both fast and slow. And the drizzle and 50-degree temperature was almost perfect running weather, and certainly better than was forecasted a few days prior.

If I have one complaint about the race (and I'm sure there are many that would agree), it is this: There just weren't nearly enough porta-potties at this event. A six-thousand person race should have, I'd say, at least sixty johns (or one for every 100 people). I think I'd be safe in hazarding a guess that there was less than half this number.

But, bathroom issues aside, this was, by far, the biggest, best, and most competitive Boulevard Bolt yet. The fact that such a large, well-organized race, yielding so many fast times, raises such a colossal amount of money for the needy and homeless means only one thing: Race director Judy Skeen deserves an equally large pat on the back and take a bow for putting on another first-class event!