By Lindsay Kramer

After building his legs on the mountain ranges of North Carolina, Brian Clark found the hills of Syracuse's Mountain Goat Run to be nothing more than speed bumps that didn't work Saturday morning.

Clark made his first appearance in the 10-mile Goat a memorable one by chewing up both the course and the competition with a winning time of 54 minutes, 27 seconds. That was 1:12 better than runner-up Ken McPherson, who led the first half of the race before fading.

Clark, a graduate student at Syracuse University, ran the course like a master even though he said he'd never been in a competition longer than 10 kilometers. Apparently his jaunts up and around mountainside roads during his undergraduate days at Western Carolina have forged lungs that can handle much more.

"It still hurts the same, but you look at it (the hills) and think, 'That's nothing,' " Clark

said. "It wasn't as tough as I thought."

Charlene Lyford took the drama out of the women's half of the race with an even more dominant performance. The 33-year-old runner from Greene won that competition in 1:00:15, well ahead of second-place finisher Mary Beth Romagnoli's 1:02:20.

The victory was Lyford's first in four Mountain Goats and fulfilled a dream she's had since high school. Lyford has the speed to now fantasize about much more - her time of 2:44 in a marathon last October earned her a spot in February's United States trials for the 2000 Olympics.

Lyford started Saturday with a first-mile split of 5:36 - roughly nine seconds faster than she planned - to relegate everyone else to running for second.

"I stayed pretty strong the whole race, which is what I wanted to do," she said. "I knew if I could stay around an hour or an hour and a minute, I'd do OK."

Clark and Lyford tamed a field 753 entrants, although several of the top runners from Goat races past skipped this year's event.

While Lyford's rabbit strategy worked, McPherson's flopped. He was confident after winning two other races this spring - a half marathon and a 15K - and thought he could break the field with a quick start.

He was half right. By the five-mile mark, McPherson had a seemingly comfortable 75-meter lead over Clark and Richard Brown, who were vying for the second spot.

Clark wasn't sure what he had left. He didn't know the course and was given a scouting report by Brown, a former Henninger runner and Mountain Goat veteran. Clark's hip was sore from a fall earlier this week and he hadn't done enough speed work this season to turn his race into a sprint.

But Clark's strategy was to divide the Goat into two five-mile races and had the kick to conquer the second half. He left Brown after the halfway point and caught McPherson a little past six miles. Around seven, near Manley Field House, Clark turned Comstock Avenue into his personal dragstrip and peeled well ahead of McPherson, who had nothing left with which to counter.

"I was trying to be conservative going out," Clark said. "I knew Ken had got out really fast. I knew it may hurt him in the long run. I started feeling good there (seven miles). That's where you start to think, 'There's only three miles left, two miles left.' "

McPherson, also a Goat rookie, could only think about what went wrong. As he crossed the finish line, he uttered "Back to the drawing board" in reference to his failed strategy.

"All I can say is it (the course) definitely ripped my legs apart," McPherson said. "I didn't race smart. It wasn't a well-thought out plan of attack."

While an unhappy McPherson was mentally re-running the race, Lyford, who should have been more tired than anybody, looked fresh enough to actually pull a Goat doubleheader. She was a little antsy waiting around for her first-place award, which was understandable considering her disdain for idle time.

Saturday, for instance, she awoke at 3:30 a.m. and did 2 hours worth of chores on her dairy farm before driving 90 minutes to the race. Then she turned a torturous course into a personal diversion from real work.

"This part of the day is my day off," she said with a smile. "I've always been on the go like that. I try to get enough rest to make up for my busy time."

Sunday, April 25, 1999

Runner faces unfamiliar route  Liverpool's Ken McPherson will compete in his
first Mountain Goat Run.
By Lindsay Kramer

If you go  What: Mountain Goat
Run When: 9:15 a.m. Saturday Where: Starts at Armory Square Distance: 10
miles. There is also a 5-kilometer race beginning at 8:30 a.m. Registration
fee: $20 for Goat, $15 for 5K through today at YMCA; $25 for Goat and $20
for 5K on race day. Prize money: For Goat, top five men's and women's
finishers get $300, $200, $100, $75 and $50, respectively. Entries: More
than 800 for Goat

Ken McPherson is becoming a quick study of long-distance
running this spring. Put in the miles, go out and conquer a course.  The
draining, 10-mile Mountain Goat race is McPherson's next measuring stick. He
has never run the course, but will line up as one of its favorites Saturday.
The Mountain Goat features lung-searing hills, but McPherson is showing
marked disdain for new challenges this season.  McPherson, a Liverpool
resident, has entered two races this spring, both at distances he'd never
run before. He won a 15-kilometer run in Chenango Forks in 50 minutes, 23
seconds and finished first in a half-marathon at Cornell in 1:12:51. Those
are paces that figure to put him near the front of the Goat pack, despite
his unfamiliarity with the course.  "I've got a good streak going,"
McPherson said. "I hope to keep it up. It all comes down to preparation. I
don't take any distance lightly."  This could be a year of turnover and a
chance for new faces to do well in both the men's and women's races in the
Mountain Goat. As of Thursday, several of the area's top men and women
runners had yet to register, although that can be done as late as the
morning of the event. Among those not signed up for the race are last year's
men's winner, Keith Stopen, and women's winner, Tanya Heard.  "It kind of
calms the nerves a little bit. I shouldn't be getting my butt kicked out
there," McPherson said.  "You like to see the same faces, but you like to
see new faces as well," said Mary Beth Romagnoli, a Manlius runner who has
competed in the Mountain Goat before and should be one of the women's
favorites this year. "I'm just going to go out and see who's there and stick
with the leading women."  The race could be competitive but a little slower
than usual. Unless a few burners show up, McPherson said it will be
difficult for the men's winner to approach Stopen's winning time of last
year, 51:39.  "I'm positive this race won't be as fast as previous races,"
he said. "Without those (previous favorites), I don't figure it's going to
be a race taken out exceptionally fast."  McPherson, who is a Binghamton
native, will continue to push his personal boundaries in the Mountain Goat.
He ran at SUNY-Binghamton, but was usually a miler. After graduating from
that school last spring, he decided that he'd be better suited in the longer
distances.  McPherson, who turns 24 on race day, said he doesn't have the
speed of a top miler. But success in longer races usually comes down to
stamina, and stamina comes down to logging miles.  That's a variable he can
control. McPherson said he's always liked cross-country running and handles
hills well. He said he's now running about 65-70 miles per week.  "I think
it (moving up in distance) has been a good choice," McPherson said. "Because
I work hard, it will allow me to do better in the longer stuff. The longer
the race gets, the less you have to rely on natural talent and the more you
have to rely on hard work."  Friday, April 23, 1999 Back

"Quick Results" - Conditions - 45 degrees, windy
 

Men	Time	Pace/mile
Keith Stopem	51:39 Westhill grad, Living in Michigan)	5:09
John Trouse	52:26	5:14
Jim Nicholson	53:09	5:18
Kevin Collins	53:37	5:21
Erik Nordman	56:26	5:38
Women
Tanya Heard	63:51 - 38th	6:23
Marybeth Romagnoli	65:03 - 49th	6:30
Patti Ford (Master)	66:56 - 65th	6:41
Cindy Lynch	68:32 - 84th	6:51
Jessica Sicherman	69:25 - 102nd	6:56

About 1,400 runners take part as the Syracuse event hits its 20th
anniversary.

By Maureen Nolan, Staff Writer

He's convinced there are more people like him out there. They're just not telling.

"I'm probably the only one who admitted it," said Charlie Gowing, 56, who has the distinction of running in more Mountain Goat races than anyone.

Or at least he's run in more of them than any one race organizers could locate on the occasion of the race's 20th anniversary. The 10-mile race began and ended Saturday morning in Armory Square. It was number 18 for Gowing.

"We couldn't find anybody who'd run in all the races, and there were a lot of people out there looking," said race coordinator Dede Van Allen.

The turnout was the heaviest in five years or more, she said. Roughly 1,400 people registered for the Goat and the corresponding 5-K run, Van Allen said, a lot of them drawn by the 20th anniversary milestone.

Gowing, however, was not counting the years. He shows up for all the races. His children were in school when he first braved the Goat. These days he's a grandfather, one who plans to run a marathon in San Diego in June.

Gowing lives in Eastwood and works as a system analyst for Crouse-Hinds. He said he doesn't race as often as he used to, and he's not as competitive about it as he once was. Still, he ran slower Saturday than he would have liked. He was running with friends and they finished together in 104 minutes.

The Mountain Goat drew a range of competitors from around Central New York, from the seriously swift to the just-for-fun set. If 10 miles was too much, there was the 5-K or the family fun run, a quarter-mile trip around the Armory.

Some of the Cicero Elementary School Running Club signed on for that one, under the guidance of physical education teacher Tom Stimson. He started the club five years ago and now has 200 members who arrive at school early each day, at 8:15 a.m.sharp, just to run.

One 5-K competitor, Joel Henry of Manlius, had benefit of a portable coach. He was among the few who ran with strollers,
pushing his daughter Joanna, 2, who weights 27 pounds. She kept urging him to "run daddy, run." Joy Henry pushed their son Clemence , 6 months.

Walt Rudy of Marcellus has been in the Mountain Goat one way or another for the last 10 years. Some years he uses in-line skates, some years he bikes, some years he snaps pictures along the way. This year, he played it straight. Some weekends, he's done as many as four different races. He says he's in it for the good times and the T-shirts. Rudy has piles of them. " I took 30 and had them made into a nice quilt," he said.

Gowing said he has boxes of race T-shirts himself, many of them vintage Mountain Goat souvenirs. He'll try for another one next year.

"If I've got a pulse, I'll do it," he said.

The race started informally, but now entries near 800.

Published April 24, 1998, in The Post-Standard.

By DONNA DITOTA

It started as a way to explore the community and offer some spice to the daily drudgery of running.

Mileage maps revealing the distance between various city parks and the downtown YMCA were tacked to the wall of    the fitness facility. Running colleagues would depart from the Y and cover the distance to one or another of the parks on a regular basis.

Finally, someone suggested stringing all the routes together to form a race. Thus the Mountain Goat Run was unofficially
hatched, some 21 years ago.

"Walt Price, he deserves all the credit," said David Ianuzi, a longtime Mountain Goat enthusiast. "He was the one who dreamed up the idea. He was always looking for ways to support the Y or advertise the Y. And most of the runners in the beginning were from the Y."

The 20th running of the official 10-mile Mountain Goat begins 9:15 a.m. Saturday in Armory Square. Price seems reluctant to take full credit for a race that has evolved into one of the gems on Central New York's running calendar. He says a group of people in his fitness class at the Y came up with the concept.

Ianuzi remembers meeting running friends at 6:30 every morning. They'd do some calisthenics, then head out for the streets of Syracuse.

Bruce Bachman used to start out from the Y with a lunchtime crowd that typically trained for marathons.

So when the first Mountain Goat course was pieced together (participants differ on whether it was 17½ or 18½ miles), the run seemed a natural progression of events. Bachman, however, is reluctant to label that initial encounter a "race." That, he says, would be a misnomer. "I'm not even sure if we timed it," he said.

Ianuzi said 44 people participated in a race that would be changed to a 10-mile run and officially christened the Mountain Goat the following year. They'd run to a park, maybe Burnet, then run back to Columbus Circle, where the start and finlines were located. If some wanted to drop out after five miles, they had their chance. If not, they'd move on to the next park on the route, say Schiller, and mosey back to Columbus Circle for the next leg. The Circle, too, was the only place stocked with water.

"It got pretty spread out," said Ianuzi, 65, who has run in probably 10 of them. "There'd be times when you'd be running alone. Luckily, I knew I was on course because I ran the course all the time."

Compare that to last year's event, which attracted about 750 runners and ladled out prize money. This year, similar numbers are expected to participate. "It's really grown," Ianuzi said. "And it could be even bigger if they tried to promote it." Ianuzi will not run this year. He's concentrating on running recreationally these days. He ran his last competitive race two years ago, when the Boston Marathon celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Bachman ran two of the races, then limited his participation to coordinating the timers. "Since then, I've decided that if I was running marathons, I wouldn't run the Mountain Goat," he said. "I decided the only way to gracefully get out of running it was to volunteer at it."

Bachman usually joins the final runner on the course in a jog to the finish line. He positions himself at Mile 9 and shouts splits to the runners passing by. His fondest Mountain Goat memory happened about five years ago. "It was 80 degrees and the last runner was an 80-year-old woman from Los Angeles who had just come from visiting her
boyfriend in New Hampshire," Bachman said. "She was talking about how hot it was. I said, "Well, you're from L.A., you must be used to this weather.' And she said she'd just ran a marathon the week before in L.A.. and it wasn't nearly as hot."

• WSYT Fox 68 Fox Chase for kids starts at 9:45 - No registration required. Meet at the children's staging area at 9:45am. All  children  will recieve a goody bag.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Registration Forms canbe found at local sporting/running stores and or call the YMCA at 315-474-6851. Race packets will be available from  9am-6pm on Friday, April 24th at the YMCA and from 7-8:15am on race day at Armory Square in front of the MOST. The race committee strongly advises all runners to pick up their race packets on friday.

Awards - The awards ceremony will be on the  on  main stage on Walton Street in Historic Armory Square at 9:30am for the 5K and 11:30am for the Mountain Goat. All  runners will be eligible for door prizes to be drawn before the Mountain Goat Awards ceremony. Must be present to win.

If you would like to volunteer to help with the race, please call the YMCA at 474-6851 they will contact the STC race director. All volunteers receive a free T-shirt.