1999 Long Beach Half Marathon

Report by: Eric Barron

Minutes before the start of the Long Beach Half Marathon and Marathon, the runners had good and bad news. The good news was the weather, cool and overcast. The bad news was the six port-a-potties for the entire mob and a line as long as the starting line waiting to use them with minutes to the gun. Some lucky runners found alternate spots to take care of their "warm-up" somewhere else in Long Beach without anxious runners jumping up and down and whining.

In the marathon, and if you run a marathon, you deserve to read about yourself first, Brian Panosian took off fast and would have finished in a bit over three hours had he not hit the proverbial wall around twenty miles. Fortunately, he had the fine support crew of Rob Dennis and Jacinda Raiche there to help him in to a 3:22:50 finish. If Brian mentions that he wanted to run faster, remind him that he ran a p.r. Taking the race less seriously, Dave Kent and Rab Brown crossed the line together in 3:27:02, and Paul Anderson cruised with a 3:35:40. Back to runners giving it their all, Rikako Takei and Catherine Shields ran 3:38:27 and 3:40:32. Congratulate them on their Boston qualifying times.

In the half marathon, Steve Lopez debuted at the distance with a great 1:24:41. Only nineteen seconds behind, Frank Siering put up with stomach cramps for much of the race to earn fourth in his age group. Slightly farther back, and recently working off much less of a training base, Terence Young should be happy with his 1:26:37. Field reporter Tim Peterson stuck with Terence for the early part of the race and met his goal of 6:45 pace with a 1:28:50, four minutes faster than he ran over the summer. Mike Kukuchka ran with something in the tank to avoid aggravating an injury and finished in 1:38:00. Sharing the effort for most of the race, Ogie Espinosa and Erica Nemmers ended up with a 1:46:50 and 1:47:16, respectively.

Finally, in the 5K, Jerico Enriquez left most runners in his wake as he took fourth place overall in 17:17, his fastest time in eleven years. Speaking of eleven years, 11-year-old Mark Sanchez won his age division with a 20:03.