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Snow Ads Excitement to Running of the Green 7K
results

White snowflakes outnumbered green shamrocks at this year's Running of the Green in downtown Denver on March 11. The spring snow shower dropped giant flakes on the 2,000 runner field at the annual 7K event, but the stream of wet stuff didn't put a damper on the competition.
"The streets weren't slick at all," said Brock Tessman, who sped over the mostly flat course that wound around lower downtown Denver for the Lucky 7 victory.

Tessman, a graduate student in political science at the University of Colorado, was pleased with how his first race of the season went. Tessman graduated from Brown University where he ran cross country and track. He used up his final year of NCAA eligibility when he started graduate school at CU last year. Now Tessman is running for himself and is equally engaged in his academic pursuits. Tessman says being busy with his graduate studies is a good distraction from the otherwise singular focus of running-a nice change from his days as a collegiate runner.

From the beginning of the race, where a chorus of bagpipe players gave the field a send-off, Tessman set a tough pace to match. He soon put a small gap on the next group and left Hector Hernandez-Sala and Austin Vigil to battle for second. Hernandez-Sala, from San Diego, outgunned Vigil in the end with a time of 21:39. Vigil took third in 21:41.

In the women's race, Natalie Davey opened up a lead from the get-go and never looked back. Davey ran to a dominating 24:43 win.

Meanwhile, as in the men's race, the run for second proved to be the real battle. Laura Sobik put together an eight second gap on Deana Case before reaching the finish line. Sobik's time of 27:00 gave her the second place honors followed by Case's 27:08.

And the bagpipes played on, as did the snow, for the remaining runners that braved the elements for the pre-Saint Patrick's day run and post-race celebration.

Female-7K
1 Natalie Davey 24:43
2 Laura Sobik 27:00
3 Deana Case 27:08
4 Laurie Edwards 27:54
5 Heather Howard 28:06
6 Noreen Shea 28:34
7 Emily Anne Reader 29:15
8 Shannon Elise Smith 29:21
9 Valerie Shockley 29:47
10 Donna Goldberg 29:47

Men-7K
1 Brock Tessman 21:24
2 Hector Hernandez-Sala 21:39
3 Austin Vigil 21:41
4 Brad Hudson 22:15
5 Rob Gilbert 22:24
6 Chester Kurtz 22:26
7 Sam Wilbur 22:38
8 John Raveling IV 23:11
9 Luis Flores 23:12
10 Aaron Berthold 23:15

Complete Results for 2001 ROTG