MOUNT VERNON — A large group of runners showed up bright and early on Saturday morning for the running of the UPI 5-Mile Run. The runners were treated to beautiful weather, a perfect temperature and a sunny morning. The course started at the intersection of Gambier Street and Gay Street and wound its way through the east side of the city to the Kokosing Gap bike path, and finally ended at the Dan Emmett Convention Center.
Mount Vernon’s Chris Glibert was the overall winner on the day, turning in an impressive time of 26 minutes, 37 seconds.
“It was an awesome race out there today,” Glibert said. “The weather was somewhat cooler than it has been and that was nice. It was a smooth race and we had a lot of competition out here this year.”
Glibert runs for the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where he will be a sophomore this upcoming season. He used this race as preparation for his upcoming season. Glibert, recovering from an injury that affected his ability to run during his first season in college, is back to nearly full strength and hopes to build on this race as he begins school and cross country season in a few short weeks.
“I would say I ran the race comfortably hard today,” said Glibert. “I definitely didn’t max out today. Hopefully my season will be going into November, so I didn’t want to run on all burners. I ran hard, though. I was working out there.”
Second place went to Mount Vernon’s Heath Boylan. Boylan graduated from Miami University this past spring and has just recently picked up competitive running again after a long hiatus. He competes in bike races, but was glad to get out the running shoes and get a good run in.
“It was a lot of fun,” Boylan said. “I haven’t run a 5-mile race for five years. The first mile I said to myself, ‘What am I doing? I haven’t run this fast in years,’ but I was able to hang on. Chris is the reason I was able to run so fast. He pulled me along.”
Boylan grew up a regular at the UPI race, first running it at the age of eight. He also got to run with his father, Sandy, another regular who competed in this year’s race. Heath ran a time of 26:50, finishing just 13 seconds behind Glibert.
“My plan was just to stick with Chris because I knew he was able to run under 27 minutes,” said Boylan. “I thought maybe I could run under a 27. I was pretty satisfied with my time. It was a really good time; it was the best time I could have hoped for, so I was very happy with it.”
The women were led by an impressive Claire Leatherwood of Ashville. Leatherwood set a blistering pace of 31:03, easily finishing in the top 10 of all competitors.
“I felt pretty good,” Leatherwood said. “It wasn’t really too hard. I felt like I was running pretty easy today. It was a nice course. I liked the out and back layout. The bike trail is really nice.”
Leatherwood attends Yale University in New Haven, Conn., where she competes on the women’s track team. She attended Teays Valley High School where she was a standout runner.
“I run in college and we needed to run a 5-mile tempo run,” Leatherwood said. “It’s just a lot easier to run it in a race than it is to run it in Ashville by myself.”
This is Leatherwood’s first time competing in the UPI race, and spending time in Mount Vernon. Her run impressed many, and hopefully will draw more runners and fresh faces to the event next year.
“This is my first time racing here,” said Leatherwood. “I looked the race up on runohio.com, and decided to come try it. Everyone is very friendly here and it was a great day. If I am still running next year, I will definitely come back.”
One thing that nearly every runner remarked on was their love of the course.
“The course is awesome,” said Glibert. “It goes down the bike trail where it gets really shady and cools you off. It’s the perfect course to run a good time. I only ran once road race this summer, and I chose this one.”
The UPI race is run for Autism Awareness, and this year they raised over $1,000.00 for their cause. Getting in a great run, and knowing there is a good cause behind it drew the fans and participants in for an excellent day of running.
