After 30 years, the Schlotzsky’s Bun Run is certainly aging gracefully. For the first time this year, the race added a 10-K to the existing 5-K and a combined record field of nearly 3500 runners turned out on Sunday morning in the seasonably humid, windy conditions.
And for the second year in a row, overall top honors went to David Fuentes who dominated the 5-K to win in 14:51. Meanwhile, Tia Martinez, a 24-year-old mother of four from Cedar Park, who was second to Chris Kimbrough last year, essayed her first Bun Run victory in 17:45. (Kimbrough was in New York on vacation.)
Although Martinez or Fuentes was ever seriously challenged on Sunday, neither victory came quite as easy as it might have looked to the hundreds of spectators who lined Riverside and Auditorium Shores.
Said Martinez, who was visibly tired from a long work week in the Valley, “It was a very difficult morning. The humidity was bad, but in the final mile that head wind made it tough, especially coming up those little hills on Cesar Chavez.”
Ah yes, the infamous little threesome of hills along Cesar Chavez didn’t exactly prove decisive to the overall winners, but certainly played into slower than expected times.
Fuentes, who took out the first downhill mile in a sizzling 4:28 with Bernard Manirakiza and Lorin Wilson 10 seconds back, said: “I wanted to go out hard right from the start. I knew if I went out really quick, coming back on Cesar Chavez was going to be hard, but I just had to suck it up.”
How much did he have to suck it up? With a first mile of 4:28, Fuentes ran a 5-minute final mile, fighting the wind by himself, to finish in 14:51 which is five seconds faster than his winning time from last year but slower than his PR of 14:47, set on the same course in 2010 when he was second to Keith Pierce.
Times and age group winners and results were delayed. But Manirakiza finished second and Derick Williamson, in his first road since last summer, took third. Wilson, a high-school teammate of Fuentes from Boerne, was fourth.
Madison Boreman placed second to Martinez among the women and Sarah Mark was third.
