Last year’s Eugene Marathon saw almost every course record broken except for one, the men’s half marathon.
This year, teammates Andrew Lemoncello and Danny Mercado of Flagstaff, Arizona, kicked hard the last half-mile to go 1-2, and both broke the course record. Lemoncello finished with a time of 1 hour, 5 minutes, 4 seconds — 19 seconds ahead of the old mark — and Mercado, five seconds later at 1:05:09.
“You don’t get very many days like this where it’s just perfect,” Lemoncello said.
Claudia Becque was the first woman to cross the line with a time of 1:18:20.
“It was a pretty challenging course,” she said. “I’m happy with my performance.”
Becque, who will now train seven more weeks for Grandma’s Marathon in Minnesota, said she was really hurting the last half mile.
“But it was definitely an amazing experience to run around the track,” Becque said. “I had never participated in a meet here. I’ve only sat in the grandstand and watched the Pre Classic. Just to be at the track and sprint at the end was great.”
Lemoncello and Mercado were able to work together and push each other through the course that began outside Hayward, wound through South Eugene and back up to Autzen Stadium, and concluded through the gates of Hayward Field for the final stretch. “Our finish doesn’t get much closer than that,” Lemoncello said.
Mercado, a 2011 University of Oregon alumnus, said the conditions were much better than last year.
“It was two months later because of the [IAAF World] Junior Championships. It was pretty hot and humid,” Mercado said.
Mercado said the best thing about this race is being able to come back and visit with others he used to run with.
“I saw a lot of people I haven’t seen it for forever,” Mercado said. “I had dinner with old teammates and we all looked at each other thinking, ‘How did we all manage to get together at the same time?’ You have to be grateful for these opportunities.”
In the end, Mercado just wanted to try and have fun with it and enjoy his time back in Eugene.
“We ran these roads and trails for five years,” he said, “and I take every opportunity I get to come back here.”
