Corrective measures

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!

OK, time to fess up.

My Monday Motivation post (yesterday) had some wrong results! Inadvertently, I was scanning the 2023 results from the Mid-Hudson Road Runner Club’s 5-mile winter run. For those keeping score at home? It’s 2024! Duh. Thanks to the alert readers and MHRRC officials who noted this and were gracious in pointing it out to me.

Back in my journalism “salad days,” I had a Poughkeepsie Journal colleague – a guy who had a pretty popular and well-read weekly column – who was fond of saying: “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!” This was maybe 25 years ago; that dude was ahead of his time!

So yeah. The results were wrong. There was nowhere near 100 finishers on a gloomy Sunday this year. Older age-group runners are definitely an inspiration. But they, like most others, stayed away in droves on Sunday – there were only two 70-plus men who raced.

However! I stand by a few things from yesterday’s post: 1. Jason Isbell’s music is awesome. 2. Runners who continue to race into their 70s and 80s are pretty swell too. 3. And oh yeah, Bob Kopac’s predictably excellent photos were most definitely from the 2024 edition of the race. A few more of them (accurately) appear with this post. As always, thanks to Bob for his persistent, consistent volunteer efforts.

So anyway … this past Sunday? The weather here sucked! After delicately pointing out that I used the wrong year’s results, MHRRC vice president Mike Tanzi – the race winner! -- noted in an email that there were only 38 finishers this year. “The cold rain/snow/sleet scared off more than half of the 92 registered runners,’’ he wrote. “Maybe some better weather next year!”

Congrats to Mike on being the overall winner, topping the field on the crappy (weather) day in 29:41 for the 5-mile loop. Here are the complete results from Sunday’s race:

1-Michael Tanzi 29:41

2-Will Estony 34:09

3-Michael Maggio 34:57

4-Stephen Talaber 35:11

5-Robert Jackson 35:29

6-Rocco Maggio 35:30

7-Mike Slinskey 36:23

8-Rebecca Roper-Eckstein 36:42

9-Vivek Pabby 36:57

10-Anastasia Rizik 37:47

11-Tara Prockter 37:51

12-Kevin Murphy 38:52

13-Salvatore Versaggi 39:57

14-Arthur Boyko 40:26

15-Jonathan Downs 41:33

16-David Walker 42:12

17-Bill Seebold 42:46

18-Jim Allen 43:53

19-Codie Bascue 46:36

20-Rachael Markoe 46:37

21-Mark Smith 46:49

22-Robert Mazyk 47:55

23-Summar Razvi 48:03

24-Arnold Cruz 48:44

25-John Kiselak 49:03

26-David Campanaro 49:51

27-Heather McGowan 49:59

28-Pamela Chaisetseree 50:02

29-Beth Zanarini 50:02

30-Jessica Vallaro 50:05

31-Alisa Pacheco 50:38

32-Joshua Long 51:45

33-Sally Buttinger 52:08

34-Joe McCormack 52:33

35-Christine Wagner 1:04:34

36-Anna Cerniglia 1:11:01

37-Keron Lewis 1:13:10

38-Karen Gates 1:13:19