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Runners tackle 'endless hills' in Yonkers Marathon
By JANE MCMANUS
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: September 17, 2007)
YONKERS - As each runner sailed by Imdigo Morton, the 8-year-old hopefully held up her cup of water. In her green shirt and denim jacket, she kept a tally in her head of the number of times an athlete picked a cup from her hand while running for the finish line in yesterday's Yonkers Marathon.
"It's cool," the Yonkers resident said with a shy smile.
Morton was there with the Westside Youth Organization of Yonkers, a tennis program to which she belongs that sends volunteers to the event every year. She was positioned on the water station at mile 13, just up the hill from Yonkers City Recreation Pier.
The Yonkers Marathon is not an easy course to finish. The 13.1-mile loop includes several slopes and unrelenting uphill grades, and the marathoners complete the route twice. Roughly 100 finished the 82nd running of the 26.2-mile race, the second-oldest in the country after the Boston Marathon. About 200 more finished the half-marathon.
John Kolenda of Yonkers, chairman of the Downtown Waterfront Business Improvement District, had not run the Yonkers Marathon since 1978 but was back yesterday for the half-marathon.
"It's a very different course," Kolenda said. "The North Broadway hills were endless, and people gave out water straight from the reservoir."
This year, the Westchester Track Club sent three of its members to the winner's podium. Derese Deniboba won the men's marathon in 2 hours, 30 minutes and 33 seconds. Mohammed Awol won the half-marathon in 1:07:47, and Emmily Chelanga of Sleepy Hollow won the women's half-marathon in 1:21:33.
Hermela Romero of Guttenberg, N.J., won the women's marathon in 3:11:38.
But this wasn't just a race for the elite competitors.
After years as a 2- and 3-mile fitness runner, Clare Conlin of West Harrison decided she was ready for a challenge in the spring and set her sights on the Yonkers half. In just over two hours, she crossed the finish line as her husband and three children cheered in the cool, sunny air by the banks of the Hudson River.
"It didn't really seem to me like I could do more," the 39-year-old Conlin said. "I'm really happy I did."
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