|
It's a 32-year-old tradition. Once a year, runners from all over the Bay Area race to the dam and back again in what's called the Dammit Run, a grueling 5-mile run from the Los Gatos High School track to the Lexington Reservoir and back to the track.
This year more than 500 runners--333 men and 189 women--showed up on a hot Aug. 13 to make the rugged run up the dusty trail.
It turned out to be something of a Central Coast Section reunion with many of the former top contenders in the prestigious high school meet finishing near the head of the pack in both the men's and women's divisions.
Jason Balkman of Saratoga and Ashley Caldwell of Los Gatos were overall winners in the annual race, but Patrick Parsel and Melissa Grelli of Cupertino were right there with the leaders.
Balkman, 28, returned to his Dammit-winning form of the past by running 26:26 to take the overall title. For the former Lynbrook High School and Stanford star it marked his third Dammit victory. He had won the title in 1997 and tied for first with his Stanford teammates, Brad Hauser, in 1998.
Balkman was a four-time CCS boys cross country champion. He also won state cross country titles in 1992 and '94 and was the state 3,200-meter champion in the 1995 track season.
Balkman finished a full 10 seconds ahead of men's runner-up, 19-year-old Patrick Parsel of Carmel Valley, who won the Dammit a year ago. Parsel, who represented Carmel High at CCS and now runs for UC-Davis, ran 26:36 to get second place. Parsel was second at the CCS cross country finals as a senior in 2004 after finishing fourth as a junior.
J.T. Service, 24, was third in 27:20.
Former Los Gatos High School sensation Caldwell won the women's race in 31:04. Caldwell helped the Wildcats to a CCS championship in 2000 by finishing eighth at the finals, and she came back as a senior to finish fifth individually at CCS. Caldwell is an All-American in both track and cross country at UCLA.
Caldwell outran Grelli to the finish line at the Dammit. Grelli, 18, was a two-time CCS champion for Presentation (2001, '03) and won a state title in 2003. Currently running for Georgetown University, Grelli ran 32:25 to finish second at the Dammit.
Katie Walker, 25, finished third in 32:36.
Former Dammit winners Gary Blanco and Chris Cozort were also in the men's field for this year's event and finished among the top 10. Blanco, the 2000 Dammit champ, finished eighth in 28:49 and Cozort, the 2003 race winner, was ninth in 29:02.
|
