Record crowd set for Sept. 25 Dogfish Dash in Milton
The annual Dogfish Dash 5K and 10K events will be held Sunday morning, Sept. 25, in Milton with both events beginning at the Chestnut Street brewery and heading toward town for a loop through the residential streets south of Union Street before the 5K heads back to the brewery and the 10K heads out to Route 16 for the second loop.
Parking will be at the brewery, Reed Trucking, Milton Medical, and Milton Elementary School. There will be an early packet pick-up scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Dogfish Head pub on Rehoboth Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. Motorists traveling in Milton should expect delays from 8 to 9 a.m on race day while Chestnut Street traffic will be detoured over to Federal Street. At last count, 1,800 runners were registered for both events with proceeds going to the Nature Conservancy.
Cannonball Run
The eighth running of the Cannonball Run 5K will take place at 8:30 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 18, at the Lewes Historical Complex at the end of Second Street in Lewes. Custom-made cannonballs will be presented to the top three finishers in each age group, while custom-made wooden runners will go to the overall champions.
Runners will start on Second Street then race by the Cannonball House before running north on Pilottown Road toward the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment to the turnaround point.
Race-day registration is from 7 to 8:30 a.m. at the historical complex for either the 5K run & walk or the Trenny Elliott Memorial 1-Mile Walk.
Ravens cross country
For the last 18 years I have written a column in the Cape Gazette - 955 columns, to be exact - covering running and racing in the Cape Region as well as runners from the Cape Region who take their talents to many places outside the Cape area.
My son Jake became a student at Sussex Tech for educational program reasons and is currently in his freshman year, looking forward to studying in the area of media broadcasting and video production as well as taking part in the cross country and track & field teams, which I am helping coach as a volunteer.
Jake ran a 5:04 mile and a 2:19 800-meter to post school records at Beacon last track season and trained well this summer before all running went on hold Aug. 1 from a condition called Sever’s disease or growth plate injury in the heel. On Sept. 14 in Georgetown, Jake joined his teammates on the starting line, finishing 10th in 19:30 in his first high school meet.
The Ravens boys, who were third in the D1 Division of the Sept. 10 Lake Invite, kicked off their opener with a sweep of Delmarva Christian and Indian River by a 15-50 score. The Ravens, led by veteran coach Lou Nicoletti, have a top five who are within a minute of each other, and anyone who knows cross country knows that a team with a pack is usually in any cross country meet in the Henlopen Conference. The Milford boys look real strong, and never do you count out the Riders of Caesar Rodney. The season should be fun!
Striders cross country
The local youth Seashore Striders team opened up also at the Lake Forest Invitational in the middle school open event with 35 girls and 38 boys taking part in the action.
For the Seashore Striders girls, sixth-grader Logan Shuttleworth led the way as she captured her first title with a time of 13:50 for the 2.12-mile course. Shuttleworth, who won the race by 50 seconds, trains just twice a week and began racing in the meet in first grade finishing in the top 10 for the last three years.
Alia Marshall, a fifth-grader, was ninth in 16:11, while Grace Brokaw finished 12th in 16:27. First-year runner Elizabeth DeCastro was 15th in 16:53, while Zoe Kelly was 17th in 17:32. Sarah Rambo finished 18th in 18:08, while Cailey Thornburg was 19th in 18:12. Lindsay Rambo was 21st in 18:59.
On the boys' side, Ben Bamforth was second in 12:51 with his soccer training helping his kick to the finish, while Blake Hundley was seventh in 14:13. Ricky Brokaw was 16th in 16:19, while Daniel Brown was 17th in 16:23.
On Saturday, Sept. 17, Striders Logan Shuttleworth, Ben Bamforth, and Blake Hundley - all three in the top three nationally last year - will take part in the Philadelphia Express Cross Country Invite at Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia on one of the toughest courses on the East Coast. Other members of the team will compete in the local Cannonball Run 5K in Lewes Sunday, Sept. 18.
Groovin' at the Grove
On Sept. 13, I posed for a picture with what may be the longest-active weekly running group in Rehoboth Beach as the Grove Walking & Jogging Club celebrated its 900th outing in a row, dating back to 1993. Longtime President Bob Porter and I went for a run at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday evening during the first week in July in 1993.
That night we ran four miles and spoke about how cool it would be to meet every week to run and walk. We continued the conversation the next Tuesday evening with another run and more ideas. Soon the ideas turned to planning, the planning turned into weekly Tuesday evening get-togethers, the get-togethers turned into 900 gatherings in a row with thousands of people all meeting for the same purpose - running and walking for the health of it.
