Glastonbury’s Donn Cabral was disappointed Thursday after finishing eighth in the Manchester Road Race in 21:51.
“I’m disappointed but I’m OK,” said Cabral, a two-time Olympic steeplechaser who now lives in Tarrytown, N.Y. “It was an extremely competitive field. I think I ran OK. Those guys ran so well, that even if I ran my best today, today wouldn’t have been the day I was going to get my win.
“It’ll have to wait at least another year.”
Cabral, 26, finished second last year. The field was very competitive this year, with Olympic medalists and former winners. Ben True, who won in 2014, outkicked Leonard Korir to win the race again in 21:31.
“My strategy coming into today was to try to cover as many moves as I can and stick around until as late as possible so I could be in contention the last 200 meters, because a lot of these guys have much better credentials than me on the track and on the roads,” Cabral said. “If I had a fighting shot to win, it would be because I was more trained for this race or more sharp for this race. I put more emphasis on it because it means more to me. I thought if I could stick around until late, maybe I’d have the wheels at the end to fight. But they had the credentials and they were also sharp.
“They put a big gap on me at the King of the Hill [around mile 2]. I managed to cover it by about the third mile. Then once I had covered it, they kept surging and I couldn’t handle those. I could get with where they were, but any move they made was over my head. I thought I was really ready to go.”
Burfoot Runs 54th
Amby Burfoot ran his 54th consecutive Manchester Road Race and his first in a new age group, as a 70-year-old.
“I ran exactly what I was capable of running,” said Burfoot, the retired editor of Runner’s World who lives in Mystic. “I had dreamed of running a minute faster and it didn’t happen. I checked out the thinning hair of every old guy on the course because I’m in a new division, the 70 division this year. I was going for the gold. But I’m sure there were a couple of guys faster than me. But anyway, it was great fun.”
Burfoot finished in 37:12 and he ended up being first in his age group.
“When I was young, I was smart,” he said. “Now I’m not so smart. Now what I do is I go out fast and fade on the hill. The kids go up like it’s nothing.
“I was running with 12-year-old girls this year and I was thinking about [Manchester Road Race female pioneer] Julia Chase, 40 to 50 years ago, nobody [female] could run and now there are 14- ti 15-year-old girls out there having a good time. So that was nice.”
O’Brien Watches
Honorary race chairwoman Cathy O’Brien, the 1990 and 1991 winner who set a course record (24:06) that stood until 2003, watched the race from the press truck. “I had so much fun,” said O’Brien, whose 1991 time would have won the race Thursday. “It went by too fast. It was a total Thanksgiving highlight.” She still runs but doesn’t race anymore. Did Thursday change her mind? “No,” she said. “I can’t do any better than I did in the ’90s.” … Third-place finisher Chris Thompson of England, a 2012 London Olympian, on why road racing is fun: “The stress of the Olympics and world championships is different, it’s like you’re there to do a job. These things, you turn up and everybody wants you to have a good experience, run hard, run well, but ultimately everyone is here to have fun and that’s what makes running brilliant. You have to press the reset button to remind yourself why you do this sport, why it’s so fun. It is quite lonely, it’s stressful, it’s hard work — you have to remind yourself with things like this, it’s the root of why you do it.” Fourth-place finisher Paul Chelimo, who won the silver medal in for the U.S. in the 5,000 meters at the Rio Olympics, said he’ll be back to Manchester: “It was a good experience. Despite the cold and everything, I think this race is perfect. That’s going to be on my list next year because it keeps me training.”
