GREENFIELD — The only sounds on a quiet Sunday morning along Colrain Road were the peepers peeping and the rhythmical slapping of Ryan Stender’s running shoes against the dry pavement.
The 23-year-old Amherst native had eased away from pace-setter Josh Fontaine at the 21-mile mark and had a commanding half-mile lead when he crossed the finish line at Greenfield Community College. He won the second annual New England Green River Marathon in 2 hours, 36 minutes, 24 seconds — 10 minutes faster than Meg Brockett’s benchmark performance in 2018.
“Everything impacts you, every step reminds you you’re racing hard,” said Stender. “I wanted to qualify for Boston and figured this was a beautiful course and close to home. It was refreshing, I didn’t feel the humidity until six miles to go.”
An All-American at Brandeis, Stender began running competitively when he was a sophomore at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School. “I’ve got myself a runner,” his coach Chris Gould had said at the time, and Stender proved him prophetic when he won the D-III states at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury in 2014.
He was the only runner to average under six-minute miles (5:58:00), but said beating the clock wasn’t his intent. “I don’t wear a watch,” he explained. “I stopped doing that in college. If I did, I’d get all caught up with it.”
Fontaine, who hails from Lebanon, N.H., was the distant runner-up. He finished eight minutes (more than a mile) ahead of Douglas Hall of Belmont and Andrew Willis of Rye, N.Y.
The first Franklin County runner was Greenfield’s Ben Whitbeck who placed sixth overall in 2:50:31. The next local runner to come along was George Balis, who finished 84th in 3:36:52. “I have some cramps from the last two miles,” said the 18-year-old Greenfield native. “I really liked seeing the crowd at the (Guilford) covered bridge. That’s probably what I’ll remember most.”
The women’s winner was Anna Ruth Halberstadt of Hadley, who finished 34th overall in 3:15:14. A North Carolina native, Halberstadt is a graduate student enrolled in the Department of Geostudies at UMass. “It was lovely,” she said. “I really enjoyed the river, and the questions they’d posted along the course— ‘How high was the water during Tropical Storm Irene? How did the Green River get its name?’ They didn’t give the answers so you really had to think.”
The 28-year-old Halberstadt was sitting close to where Julia Ernst was crawling to the finish line on all fours. Ernst wobbled to the wire and collapsed amongst a throng of cheering supporters. Despite her obvious physical distress, the 23-year-old Virginian had finished 62nd overall and was second in her age group.
Asked about her well-being, Kerry Turk of RAT Race Timing said, “She’s busy throwing up. It’s rare in a small race, but you see all sorts of physical and emotional states in the bigger marathons.”
The first local female finisher was Greenfield’s Kathleen Simanski in 4:08:59, followed by Kate O’Neil of Charlemont in 4:37:58.
Sponsored by the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club and the Connecticut River Conservancy, a field of 444 runners was bussed north to Marlboro College between Brattleboro and Wilmington, Vt. for the 7 a.m. start in 44-degree weather.
“When you’re shivering at the start, you know it’s going to be a fast race,” said Michael Southam of Shelton, Ct., who was wearing bib No. 2. “I’m afraid that only means I was the second person to register,” he said with a laugh. “I ran last year and this is such a beautiful course I was keen to get in again this year. I didn’t want to miss it.”
After being checked out by the medical staff, runners regrouped in a misting tent and got complimentary rubdowns by James Callaway of Riverview Massage in Shelburne Falls. They gulped restoring fluids and feasted on a cornucopia of fresh fruit and pastries.
Many were first-time marathoners, and most said they’d been lured by the course’s scenery and downhill design. “Great run man, that was a great race,” said Jared Judy of Wilmington, Del. who had read that Green River was one of the fastest marathon courses in the U.S. “Say thank you to all the people who were out here and who were out on the road. They were great.”
Despite its relative ease, only 254 runners had crossed the finish line at 1:30 p.m. when the course was officially closed. A list of the Franklin County finishers is on today’s scoreboard page.