Jim Spisak Wins 41st Annual Richard S. Caliguiri City of Pittsburgh Great Race

At the 41st running of the Richard S. Caliguiri City of Pittsburgh Great Race, two-time winner Jim Spisak, 27, from Pittsburgh and Samantha Bower, 28, from Greensburg, PA were the 10K champions in 28:16 and 35:31, respectively. In the 5K race, Kenny Goodfellow, 29, from Oakmont, PA, and Lisa Burnett, 35, of Chagrin Falls, OH, took the titles in 15:17 and 17:20, respectively. Spisak, who also won the Great Race in 2013 and 2014, took the lead early on and continued to widen the gap as he neared the finish line, beating second- and third-place finishers Max Petrosky and Alex Archer by more than three minutes. The three-time race champion was living and training with NE Distance in Providence, RI, for the past three years but recently returned to Pittsburgh to serve as the cross county coach at Point Park University. “I wasn’t aiming for a certain time today, but the weather was about as good as you could hope for. And it’s a good course to run fast on because it’s mostly downhill,” said Spisak. “I came out faster during that first mile than I thought, and I ended up running so well that I set a new 10K personal record.” But the race wasn’t just special because of his great performance.

posted Monday October 1st