2005 Cap10K

It was a great day here in Austin for the Cap10K. It was cool and sunny. At 8:53am it was 55F with 69% humidity. Bernard Manirakiza won the race with a time of 30:06. It was the fastest Cap10K time since 1997 when Len Sitko set the course record at 29:49. I saw Manirakiza at about mile 5. He had about a 40 second lead. I thought he had a chance to break the record. I ran to the finish line and saw him just miss a sub 30 run. Nevertheless, it was an impressive run.

Cassandra Henkiel won the women's race with a time of 35:27. It was better than last year's time of 36:11 but not quite as good as 2003's time of 34:38. She has also won three other Cap10Ks (94, 95, and 99).

One thing fun about the Cap10K is the costumes that the non-competitive runners wear. My favorite today was a costume of a giant cigarette. It was a foam cylinder that extended from about his knees to several feet above his head. It's not that I like to see the promotion of smoking, but it was the creative political message. The City of Austin will be voting this May about whether to ban smoking in public places. So this costume was more than just a costume, but also a political message. On the top of the cigarette, the runner had the sign "Vote for Tolerance". This blog post has more information about this costume and this smoking ban issue.

I'm in the process of crunching the numbers. I should have some posted by tomorrow.