Ultra marathon ‘winners’ topped 50 miles at UW-Green Bay

Last weekend’s inaugural ultra-marathon held on campus by the Green Bay Running Club was a memorable event. A report from the club’s Ann Scholl notes that the weather was decent but the heavy rains of the previous week necessitated a course correction: The original course route followed the Mahon Creek trail into the culvert under Nicolet Drive, but when the overflowing creek turned that “tunnel” into a rapids, the course was re-routed for runner safety and shortened to a 4.1-mile loop.

At 5 a.m. Saturday, 18 eight-hour runners toed the start line, and two hours later, they were joined by 11 more runners headed out for 6 hours. The field included about a dozen local entrants, several from southern Wisconsin and still more from as far away as Kansas and Maryland. Volunteers gave out food, water, encouragement and cold, wet towels. The eight-hour winners were Alisha Damrow from Appleton with 53.3 miles and Evan Cestari from Appleton with 57.4 miles. The six-hour leaders, both from Green Bay, were Kim Garner with 36.9 miles and Mike Servais with 39 miles. Chances for a second annual run? We’ll address that and other odds’n’ends in a future post.