Sunday, November 1, 2009

NEWSFLASH: REAVES WINS RALEIGH MARATHON!



For 20 miles or so, Patrick Reaves, 24, didn't think he had a chance.

But in the most challenging part of the City of Oaks Marathon, on a wet, cold and gusty Sunday morning, Reaves, a graduate student at Duke, finally brought the race's leader into his sights, and he found new life in the muddy hills of Umstead State Park.

He took the lead and never looked back, and with a time of 2:33:03, Reaves finished ahead of Orinthal Striggles of Elgin, S.C., (2:38:23) and Nicholas Robin of Durham (2:39:37).

"It feels amazing," Reeves said of his first marathon win. "Honestly, I thought I was running for second.

"I didn't see the guy in first place until 20 miles into it. He was falling off pretty fast."

//

The conditions were far from ideal for the event, in its third year. It was rainy and in the 50s when the race started, and there were wind gusts as roughly 3,500 runners picked up speed at the starting line.

Reaves said he never considered not running because of the weather, even as he said he has never run in such bad conditions, which was a common refrain.

He said when he saw that he could win, he found new legs, ignoring the wind in his face and powering over the steep, slippery hills of Umstead.

He said he ran his fastest five miles at race's end.

"The course was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be," Reaves said. "I was really trying to stay patient, patient, patient.

"In the end, it paid off."

16 comments:

P Murph said...

2:33:00 on a "rediculously tough course" in a cold driving rain.  He was 3:20 behind a Kenyan at mile 15, but the Kenyan faded at mile 20 and Reaves closed the last six miles in under 5:30/mi pace. 

Peter said...

Congrats PR!

dirkdeheer said...

that is so assum, you're the man PR! Hard work and being patient the last week paid off! I'm excited for you!!

Matt Ernst said...

Way to go Mr. Reaves!

Jonathan Amato said...

Excellent! That is awesome! Congrats.

JARRIN said...

Good work Mr. Reaves!

- JARRIN

Matias said...

That is awesome, and what a prize purse

Chris Vames Sloane said...

Nice work Patrick!

Joe Wiggy said...

NICE WORK PATRICK!!!

PR said...

Thanks guys. I ran pretty conservatively early on and was able to capitalize on that late in the race with my fastest mile at #25. Definitely not a "PR" day or course, as PMurphy explained, but I'm pretty psyched about the win.

I'll throw together a race report today or tomorrow...and I'm already looking forward to our Club XC road trip in Kentucky.

Billy said...

Great race Reaves! Also props to Raabe, Dylan, and Jarrin for their solid NYC performances.

Patrick Hughes said...

well done!

christiam said...

AWESOME, congrats Patrick!!

PR said...

To bounce off what Billy said, I'd like to add that Raabe was 20th overall at NYC yesterday, beating some studs along the way.

This seems to have snuck under the radar, but I guess we've come to expect disturbingly fast performances from him at this point. Nice work!

KLIM said...

Damn good. Way to represent and out-tough the other bastards!

Karl D. said...

Badass! I love it! Congrats.