PORTLAND – You’ll have to forgive Jonny Wilson and Kristin Barry that they weren’t jubilant with their wins in the Thanksgiving Day 4-miler on Thursday. They have very high standards.
Both certainly looked impressive as they breezed in the 30th edition of the Portland race.
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Wilson turned a corner on Federal Street and cruised through the last 100 yards without even looking to see if anybody was behind him. There wasn’t. He finished in 19 minutes, 56 seconds. His time was nearly 30 seconds in front of second-place finisher Seth Pelletier, who pumped his fist as he finished.
“Actually I’m a little disappointed in my time,” Wilson said. “I was trying to run closer to 19:30. But it was cold. I’m just happy the course was dry.”
Wednesday’s snowfall and temperatures in the 20s on Thursday led to patches of ice throughout the downtown Portland course, but mostly on the side of the streets. Wilson, who lives in Falmouth, was just happy to navigate to the finish unscathed.
After running in the lead pack for the first three-quarters of a mile, Wilson took the lead for good on a climb up Free Street.
The win wasn’t a surprise. Wilson won the Yarmouth 5-miler, Bridgton’s 4K on the Fourth and was the second Maine finisher at the Beach to Beacon 10K. Now comes the best part of his schedule: a little time off.
“It was a pretty long summer of racing,” Wilson said. “I ran a race a week.”
Barry’s season is far from over. The Scarborough resident is running in the Olympic marathon trial in January. To get ready for the run in Houston, Barry is running 120 miles per week. But she made time for the 4-miler.
“It’s a tradition,” she said. “I’ve done it since college. My dad runs it.”
Her training was evident. While other runners heaved and struggled at the finish, Barry cooly stopped her watch and walked away after finishing in 23:04. Krystal Douglas of Harpswell was second in 23:50 and Kristine Guaraldo of South Portland finished third in 24:56.
It was a dominant performance but Barry wasn’t thrilled with her time. She said she went through four miles in 22:10 at the Beach to Beacon in August. She stood inside the building at One Monument Square 15 minutes after finishing the race with her gloves still on, arms crossed. Running four miles with temperatures in the 20s was painful, even if it was for a victory.
“We scoped out the course early this morning,” Barry said. “We saw there was some ice so I decided to just stay wide on the turns and not push anything.”
Like Wilson in the men’s race, Barry surged up Free Street on the first lap of downtown to take her big victory. There was quite a field for Barry to pick her way through. This year the 30-year-old race had 1,782 entries and 1,566 finishers. The total finishers was down from 1,649 in 2010, though it didn’t snow the day before that race.
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