Mountain Goat tops milestone
- 1998 By Maureen Nolan, Staff Writer He's convinced there are more people like him out there. They're just not telling. "I'm probably the only one who admitted it," said Charlie Gowing, 56, who has the distinction of running in more Mountain Goat races than anyone. Or at least he's run in more of them than any one race organizers could locate on the occasion of the race's 20th anniversary. The 10-mile race began and ended Saturday morning in Armory Square. It was number 18 for Gowing. "We couldn't find anybody who'd run in all the races, and there were a lot of people out there looking," said race coordinator Dede Van Allen. The turnout was the heaviest in five years or more, she said. Roughly 1,400 people registered for the Goat and the corresponding 5-K run, Van Allen said, a lot of them drawn by the 20th anniversary milestone. Gowing, however, was not counting the years. He shows up for all the races. His children were in school when he first braved the Goat. These days he's a grandfather, one who plans to run a marathon in San Diego in June. Gowing lives in Eastwood and works as a system analyst for Crouse-Hinds. He said he doesn't race as often as he used to, and he's not as competitive about it as he once was. Still, he ran slower Saturday than he would have liked. He was running with friends and they finished together in 104 minutes. The Mountain Goat drew a range of competitors from around Central New York, from the seriously swift to the just-for-fun set. If 10 miles was too much, there was the 5-K or the family fun run, a quarter-mile trip around the Armory. Some of the Cicero Elementary School Running Club signed on for that one, under the guidance of physical education teacher Tom Stimson. He started the club five years ago and now has 200 members who arrive at school early each day, at 8:15 a.m.sharp, just to run. One 5-K competitor, Joel Henry of Manlius, had benefit of a portable
coach. He was among the few who ran with strollers, Walt Rudy of Marcellus has been in the Mountain Goat one way or another for the last 10 years. Some years he uses in-line skates, some years he bikes, some years he snaps pictures along the way. This year, he played it straight. Some weekends, he's done as many as four different races. He says he's in it for the good times and the T-shirts. Rudy has piles of them. " I took 30 and had them made into a nice quilt," he said. Gowing said he has boxes of race T-shirts himself, many of them vintage Mountain Goat souvenirs. He'll try for another one next year. "If I've got a pulse, I'll do it," he said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remembering When the Mountain Goat Was a Kid Published April 24, 1998, in The Post-Standard. By DONNA DITOTA It started as a way to explore the community and offer some spice to the daily drudgery of running. Mileage maps revealing the distance between various city parks and the downtown YMCA were tacked to the wall of the fitness facility. Running colleagues would depart from the Y and cover the distance to one or another of the parks on a regular basis. Finally, someone suggested stringing all the routes together to form a race. Thus the Mountain Goat Run was unofficially hatched, some 21 years ago. "Walt Price, he deserves all the credit," said David Ianuzi, a longtime Mountain Goat enthusiast. "He was the one who dreamed up the idea. He was always looking for ways to support the Y or advertise the Y. And most of the runners in the beginning were from the Y." The 20th running of the official 10-mile Mountain Goat begins 9:15 a.m. Saturday in Armory Square. Price seems reluctant to take full credit for a race that has evolved into one of the gems on Central New York's running calendar. He says a group of people in his fitness class at the Y came up with the concept. Ianuzi remembers meeting running friends at 6:30 every morning. They'd do some calisthenics, then head out for the streets of Syracuse. Bruce Bachman used to start out from the Y with a lunchtime crowd that typically trained for marathons. So when the first Mountain Goat course was pieced together (participants differ on whether it was 17½ or 18½ miles), the run seemed a natural progression of events. Bachman, however, is reluctant to label that initial encounter a "race." That, he says, would be a misnomer. "I'm not even sure if we timed it," he said. Ianuzi said 44 people participated in a race that would be changed to a 10-mile run and officially christened the Mountain Goat the following year. They'd run to a park, maybe Burnet, then run back to Columbus Circle, where the start and finlines were located. If some wanted to drop out after five miles, they had their chance. If not, they'd move on to the next park on the route, say Schiller, and mosey back to Columbus Circle for the next leg. The Circle, too, was the only place stocked with water. "It got pretty spread out," said Ianuzi, 65, who has run in probably 10 of them. "There'd be times when you'd be running alone. Luckily, I knew I was on course because I ran the course all the time." Compare that to last year's event, which attracted about 750 runners and ladled out prize money. This year, similar numbers are expected to participate. "It's really grown," Ianuzi said. "And it could be even bigger if they tried to promote it." Ianuzi will not run this year. He's concentrating on running recreationally these days. He ran his last competitive race two years ago, when the Boston Marathon celebrated its 100th anniversary. Bachman ran two of the races, then limited his participation to coordinating the timers. "Since then, I've decided that if I was running marathons, I wouldn't run the Mountain Goat," he said. "I decided the only way to gracefully get out of running it was to volunteer at it." Bachman usually joins the final runner on the course in a jog to the
finish line. He positions himself at Mile 9 and shouts splits to the runners
passing by. His fondest Mountain Goat memory happened about five years
ago. "It was 80 degrees and the last runner was an 80-year-old woman
from Los Angeles who had just come from visiting her Conditions - 45 degrees, windy Men |