Projo Running Blog

This Memorial Day weekend will go down as being a particularly memorable one for local marathoners Matt Pelletier and Heidi Westerling, as the duo successfully defended their titles at Sunday's KeyBank Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vt.

Finishing well before the heavy wind and rain hit, Pelletier, who had met the U.S. Olympic "B" qualifying standard with his 2:20:26 performance at last October's LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, took it one step further Sunday, finishing a full minute under the "A" standard with his winning time of 2 hours, 19 minutes.

Meanwhile, Westerling, who burst onto the marathon scene with a victory at the 2005 Cape Cod Marathon and achieved the women's Olympic "B" qualifying standard with last year's Vermont City win (2:44.04), fell short of the "A" standard (2:39) Sunday, but still ran plenty fast enough to capture another title with a time of 2:48:56.

By meeting the "A" standard, Pelletier, 27, of Warwick will get his travel, meal and hotel expenses covered for the men's marathon trials, which will be held in Central Park on Nov. 3, the day before this year's ING New York City Marathon.

Westerling, 24, a native of Acworth, N.H. and a highly decorated runner while at URI, will compete in the women's marathon trials, to be held next April 20 on a special course in Boston, the day before the 112th running of the actual Boston race.

Pelletier provides this detailed account of his race:
"During the race, I was worried that we were running too fast, but in hindsight, it couldn't have worked out any better. Glen Guillemette once told me that your best races happen when you go out over your head and hold on until the end. The plan was to run 5:25 pace until about 20 miles and then pick it up. Our 1st mile mile was around 5:40 and the rest of the lead pack was anxious, so 2nd-place finisher Mike Wardian took over and set the pace. He started to pull away around mile 7, and I mentioned to the rest of the pack that he had gotten far enough ahead, and we pulled him back in.
Around Mile 9, Daniel Gidumbanda from Tanzania and I were the only ones left up front and we worked together, sharing water bottles and talking. After
climbing the hill at 15, he tucked in behind me and I started to worry the early pace would kill us both.
At 17 Miles, I offered him my water bottle but he was 5 steps behind me so he had to sprint up to me to get it. That's when I made my move. I waited for him to finish with the water bottle and then threw a surge in for about 2 miles and that put him away. I held onto a pretty good pace until 25 miles and that's where I really started to hurt.
My 1/2-marathon splits were 1:09:31/1:09:29 so you can't get any more
even split than that. The time also moved me from 67th to 42nd in the
seedings for the Trials, ahead of many professional runners who don't work 2
jobs, but make their living from running.''

Westerling, who is back running in the foothills of Acworth, Walpole and Langdon with her alma mater's current running team now that she has completed her Masters at URI, had this to say about her performance on Sunday: "I went out too fast this past weekend trying too hard for it and paid dearly, but live and learn. I have to listen to my coach Larry more and his advice. If I had followed it, the race would have been more pleasant.

"I am not sure on what races I will do this fall. I am looking forward to doing the Cape. Will I try to include another marathon like last year? I am not sure at this point. Burlington and the Cape are such great races because they have a great feeling of community and I have a big crowd of family and friends that go and cheer me on so that's always really nice."

Click here to read John A. Fantino's account of Sunday's race that appeared Monday on Burlington Free Press.com.

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