Monday, March 27, 2000
Menoher goes distance in Heart
5K expert wins Mini-Marathon
BY MICHAEL PERRY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tim Menoher of Fort Wright, Ky., had the lead all to himself Sunday as he run along Columbia Parkway.
(Gary Landers photos)
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Sunday was only the fourth time Tim Menoher ran a race that was longer than 10 kilometers. He uses distance runs mostly to train for the 5K, in which he hopes to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in July.
Still, the 28-year-old Ft. Wright, Ky., resident ran mostly alone during the 23rd ChoiceCare/Humana Cincinnati Heart Mini-Marathon. He won the 15K race in 48:45, well ahead of second-place Kevin Taylor (49:52).
It didn't take long for Menoher to pull in front. He, Taylor and third-place finisher Dan Flaute (50:01) had separated from the pack by the midway point.
“I'm not used to racing this kind of race,” Menoher said. “It's good to do it once in a while. It helps your strength. This is way over my distance. I do nothing geared toward this except for my distance runs. I was just hoping to get out and compete and get a good workout in.”
But he knew he had a chance to win. Menoher finished third in the 1999 Heart Mini-Marathon. John Sence, who had won the event twice in a row, and T.J. Lentz, who
finished second in both those races, did not run Sunday.
That opened the door for Menoher (pronounced Men-OCK-er), who led almost the entire race, most of the time quite comfortably.
“It's harder, but when you're out in front, it pushes you just because you're running scared,” he said.
Men's winner Tim Menoher knew his main competitor well. Menoher shared a room Saturday night with runner-up Kevin Taylor.
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“I try not to look back. That's just psychological. (If) the guy behind you sees you looking back, he knows you're hurting. Even though I was hurting the last few miles. ... When I hit the 9-mile marker, I felt confident.”
That, of course, was at the end.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning, perfect for a run. Roughly 11,500 runners and walkers — a record for the event — participated Sunday. There was a slight breeze and, if anything, some runners said it was almost too warm.
Jill Tranter won the women's division in a personal-best 56:32.
This is only the second time Menoher has run the Heart Mini-Marathon. A native of Latrobe, Pa., Menoher ran cross country and track at Eastern Kentucky University.
He lived in the Greater Cincinnati area in 1996, moved away, then returned in the spring 1998. He works for Fifth Third Bank.
He runs two or three times a week with Sence and Lentz at Princeton High School. Menoher finished third in last year's inaugural Flying Pig Marathon.
Menoher has until the beginning of July to cut his best 5K time of 14:12 to 13:47 to earn a spot in the Olympic trials in Sacramento.
He said his training has been going well since he lost more than a month of workouts in February after coming down with bronchitis and a sinus infection.
“I lost five or six weeks of quality training,” he said. “But I think I still have a good shot at qualifying.”
After Menoher made the turnaround halfway through Sunday's race, runners on their way up Columbia Parkway were cheering and applauding the front-runner, shouting words of encouragement and letting him know the distance between him and Taylor.
“That's great,” he said. “That sort of makes you pick it up a little more. It's awesome. Everybody's real supportive.
“The course is deceivingly hard. It's rolling hills, and you don't think it's going to be that bad. The hills really get to you. I really felt the last hill bad. I was hurting.”
It just didn't show.
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