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BY PAUL JANKOWSKI
Times Correspondent | Sunday, April 22, 2007 | (No comments posted.)
RUNNING | FIFTH ANNUAL TALTREE 10 NOTEBOOK
VALPARAISO | At least running is a healthy addiction.
Several competitors in Saturday's Taltree 10 event at Aberdeen have had a busy month, starting with the Ringing In Spring 5K two weeks ago and the Valpo Mini-Marathon last Sunday.
But there's a few others who took it one step further.
Chesterton's Sam Langley and Cassandra Rozycki, and Betty Funkhouser of Portage, ran in the Boston Marathon on Monday.
The soreness from running 26.2 miles against the wind on a chilly, rainy day in Boston didn't slow down Langley, 27. He placed fourth overall in 1:02:38, good enough to win the highly-competitive 25-29 age group.
"I guess I just like this race and wanted to run it," Langley said. "I didn't come out here intending to run hard, but I just went with the flow and listened to my body.
"But deep inside, my conscious told me I would (run fast)."
Langley is one of Porter County's top marathon runners, having competed in Boston the last two years. His time on Monday was 3:14:01.
Rozycki is Langley's fiance. They have scheduled a July wedding with a honeymoon of cycling in Italy in October.
"We went out on a three-mile run on Friday and that helped a lot," Rozycki said. "We walked a lot after the marathon, and that is good to help with the soreness."
Rozycki placed second among the women in 1:17:27, which was 39th overall and first in the 35-39 age division. Her Boston time was 3:46:04, which was five seconds off qualifying for next year's marathon.
Funkhouser, 49, of Portage won the 45-49 age division in 1:23:05. She ran Boston in 3:37:49.
Fantastic fund raiser: Profits from this year's Taltree are going to benefit the Calumet Striders' junior program. There were 184 finishers on a beautiful morning with the temperature near 70 degrees.
"The perfect weather was a big plus," race director Todd Henderlong said. "That makes everything much easier."
The race is unique in that it runs through the Aberdeen subdivision, on a hilly country road and about three miles in the Taltree Arboretum.
"We try to put on one of the most runner-focused, neighborhood-friendly races in the area," Henderlong said. "I had plenty of runners tell me how much they love the course, the awards, and all of the food at the finish.
"An added bonus was all of the neighbors who came over to comment how much they enjoy the event. Several also said appreciate us making sure we don't block them or disrupt the traffic flow, and how after the race is finished you really can't tell we had a race."
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