Liberty AC racing report - June 21-22, 2025
One again a weekend with no shortage of activity, with Liberty athletes all over the place. This who raced on Saturday had the better weather, while a three-day heat wave moved in Sunday morning after some early cloud cover and light sprinkles.
Saturday featured the grand Club Challenge 26 x 1 mile relay in Medford, with 29 club teams finishing, from competitive to purely participatory, in a slightly crazy, yet well organized and certainly festive environment. Running a mile takes less time than 5K-and-up, but it is by no means easy. The combined Liberty AC-Parkway AC team posted a time of 3:01:51, good for 17th overall. Individual results (by running order) are as follows:
#5 Jessica Bodner (7:33), #6 Melanie MacFarlane (7:51), #9 Anne Shreffler* (7:57), #11 Dru Pratt-Otto* (8:34), #13 Joanne Hill* (8:00), #15 Maria Zullo (9:03), #17 Caitlin Sweeney (7:24), #19 Judy Jungels (7:06/5th 60-69), #21 Maria Rojas Duran (8:21), #24 Jolie Jaycobs 5:55, #25 Barry Sussman [Zullo] 5:50/1st M60-69, Madeline Miller (6:21),
*Anne doubled back in the BAA 10K Sunday while Joanne and Dru did the Cohasset Triathlon [see below].
Also Julie Menosky (7:03) helped out her former club, the North Shore Striders, as she has before, placing #4 in the 60-69s. And your coach, running #8 on the Greater Lowell “Volunteers” team ran 6:11 for 1st in the M70-plus.
BIG thanks to all 11-milers-plus-spouse who represented Liberty, and made colleague and friendship connections with Parkway (and many others) once more.
On the other side of Boston Vicky Shen took on the Blue Hills Skyline Trail 12K, described as a “gnarly, old-school trail race with 2300 feet of climbing” and was the #2 overall woman in 1:50. (Glad it wasn’t on Sunday, Vicky?)
On to Sunday and here comes the heat . . . the BAA 10K was blessed with a (relatively) cool 8:00 am start, although those waiting for the waves to start surely felt increasing temps plus humidity. We’ve counted six Liberty athletes who crossed the finish line: 30-34s = Kaileigh Maguire (58:15), 35-39s = Margaret Keaveny (52:55), 45-49s = Jennifer Stewart (48:36), 55-59s = Kathleen Kearnan (56:35) & Veronique Vanderhorst 45:34 (2nd place!), 65-69s = Ann Shreffler (53:45, also 2nd place!)
A little further south was the annual Cohasset Sprint Triathlon where Joanne Hill (1:25:12) placed 4th in the 60-64s and Dru Pratt-Otto (1:36:10) nabbed 2nd in the 65-69s. Great weekend doubling, Dru, Joanne & Anne!
Mary Cass and Catherine Xie ran the “F(aith) K(ipyegon) T(ime) mile” at the Moakley Park track in East Boston on Sunday, and Catherine was kind enough to forward the results link. Catherine ran 6:16.8, Mary 6:25.9; 21 runners took part (including our USATF-NE board president Dave Teszler). Everyone received a time but there were no “winners”, only participants supporting the attempt on Thursday by Kipyegon to become first woman 4:00 miler. (Her current world record is 4:07.)
So: Another in a lengthening line of jammed-full weekend results by Liberty athletes. Congrats to all and thanks for putting Liberty blue out there in the running (plus) world!