Pitarresi: "Picture Perfect" is right on

Sometimes things just come together in a very good way.

 

It was that way for the 32nd Utica Boilermaker Road Race Sunday.

 

“Picture Perfect” was the lead headline in today’s Observer-Dispatch, and that characterization was right on.

 

The weather, with blue skies, a good breeze and temperatures somewhere between 55 and 61 degrees, depending on what source you used, was about perfect for running. You had the second largest field ever – 11,866 – and a great men’s open race, with Morocco’s Ridouane Harroufi patiently running down Bazu Worku Hayla to win the title.

 

Everything seemed to work well. No major snafus like last year’s monumental timing glitch.

 

There seems to be a lot of discussion about the crowd not being as big as in the past. I don’t know about that. It’s all personal perception. My own view is that the crowds are thinner along Culver Avenue and the Parkway than in the past, but have become larger after the 5-mile mark near the Utica Zoo, and especially in the last mile or so. It’s possible that people have moved down to be closer to the finish and the post-race party, and race director Jim Stasaitis suggested that spectators have found they can pick out friends and family more easily in the second half of the race, when the huge pack strings out. I don’t think the crowds were any smaller than in the past. Running legend Bill Rodgers told me he thinks they were larger than ever before and bigger and better than any place he’s been other than Boston and New York.

 

This was a very successful Boilermaker, to be sure. It’s something executive director Tim Reed, his committee, the thousands of volunteers, runners, fans, sponsors and everyone in the Mohawk Valley can be proud of.