Heart of America Marathon
Labor Day Columbia, Missouri

1990 Report

After eight years of having the race on a relatively cool October day and finishing on Faurot Field, we went back to the traditional Labor Day date and back to the traditional course with the finish on Broadway in downtown Columbia.

After four tries, David Dabkowski came up a winner by coming from way back (at 12 miles he was 10:44 behind the leader) to catch Dmitry Voldman, a native of Kiev, Russia, just before the 25-mile marker on College Ave. Dobkowski's performance was quite remarkable. First of all he ran an HOA PB, albeit by only 23 seconds. But consider that his four previous races were on those cool October days - this time he had to contend with mid-70 temperatures, 90% humidity and a bright sun with no cloud cover. Dobkowski is most consistent in HOA: his four previous times are 2:55:34 in '84, 2:52:10 in '85,2:55:41 in '88 and 2:55:09 in '89. These were good for 14th, 2nd, 6th, and 5th place finishes. Also, he has always had negative splits, running the second half faster than the first. This year he was 1:31:37 for the first half and a remarkable 1:20:10 over the second! Further, each of his 3-mile splits were faster than the previous one, except for the last, to wit: 22:25, 21:05, 21:01, 19:21, 19:03, 18:53, 18:05 and 18:32.

Voldman led for the first 25 miles with a lead of 5:43 as late as 18 miles. At that point Dobkowski was still 8:28 behind, but cut 3:13 over the next 3 miles and almost 4 minutes over the next 3. The heat was obviously taking its toll. Voldman had a habit of running down the middle of the road, not realizing that this is not like your big city marathons where the streets are closed off. We were constantly hollering at the Russian trying to get him to run on the left, but he didn't seem to understand and afterwards said that this constant harassment affected his performance. No doubt it did, but in reality he finished second because there was too much sun and too much Dobkowski.

Michelle McFadden and Annette Craighead ran together the entire race finishing in a tie for first, becoming women's co-champions, with the fifth best time ever for women. They, too, had negative splits: 1:38:51 and 1 :36:29.

Raul Flores ran in second place for the first 16 miles than began to feel the effects of the 100 mile race (the Leadville 100) he had completed two weeks previously in the mountains of Colorado.

Simon Rose was the leading CTC performer. His intent was to run a 15 or so mile relaxed workout, but he never could figure out when to bring his "workout" to a halt. In fact, he too, flew over the second half faster than the first: 1:47:49 to 1:43:31.

Mianne Underwood became the first woman winner of the Dave Schulte Award with her improvement of 3.14% over last year ¬a modest improvement (the smallest winning improvement in the 18-year history of the award) but again, the comparison is with a cool October day and she did better than any one else.

Lou Fritz finally broke his string of consecutive HOAs, and he did it in style, driving all the way from Verdon, Nebraska to become a spectator, and a worker since we recruited him to take care of the manual scoring.

The weather: Hot and humid, no cloud cover, winds out of the east at 7 MPH, all reminiscent of that steamy 1970 Labor Day. 71 degrees at 6:00 AM, up to 80 at 10, 90% humidity.