SANTA CRUZ — John Mentzer was first up the hill at the Santa Cruz Sunrise Rotary Firecracker 10k, and first to the finish line.
Mentzer of Monterey won the event Monday with a time of 34 minutes, 13 seconds, about a half minute ahead of Gabriel Lombriser of Santa Cruz.
Both runners gave their respects to the steep Pogonip hill for the third and fourth miles. Lombriser, from Switzerland and currently serving a software-related internship in Scotts Valley, said the hill made all the difference.
"He kicked my ass on the uphill," Lombriser said of Mentzer. "We had a gap between us, and I couldn’t get over it."
In the women’s race, Lynice Anderson of Reno, Nev., was first overall at 39:37. Mary Maleta, a 2003 Soquel High grad who now runs for UCLA, was the top local woman. Maleta placed second at 39:46. The field included 342 finishers in the 10k.
Lombriser, 23, won the Nisene Marks half marathon in his last road race, and has taken up triathlons, competing in his first last weekend. He is anticipating his second next weekend.
Mentzer, 28, originally from Montana, ran for the Naval Academy in college. He moved to Monterey in March to attend the Navy’s postgraduate school in engineering. He said there’s no better place to run than the Central California coast.
The Firecracker course start and ends at Harvey West Park with the tough climb in the middle, then a downhill finish.
| "I guess I made it up the hill," Mentzer said. "I think it helped that I hadn’t run the course before. I thought, ‘This hill can’t be that bad.’ But it kept going and going." |
