Running News Daily

Allie Kieffer makes quick work for her 3M Half Marathon win, while Joseph Gray wins a close one

World-class runner Allie Kieffer keeps a low racing profile here in Austin, but when she does race, she wins.

A last-minute entry in this year's 3M Half Marathon, Kieffer took advantage of ideal running conditions Sunday morning — mid-40s and clear — to add another victory to her Austin racing résumé, while Joseph Gray, a World Mountain Running champion, topped the men’s field.

Even though Kieffer has a perfect record in Austin, Sunday's 3M win was somewhat of a redemption for her. Running in the highly competitive Barron Collier Companies Naples Half Marathon last week in Florida, she went off course, losing her lead and placing fourth.

“I took a wrong turn at the Naples Half, so I couldn’t cross the line first,” Kieffer said. “So today I was thinking, ‘I want to win.' I was feeling pretty competitive.

“I wasn’t intending to race today,” she added. “Initially I was just going to pace it with a friend, but I couldn’t find him at the start.”

Kieffer took off from the starting line on Stonelake Boulevard in North Austin at a brisk pace of 5 minutes, 52 seconds per mile, with Karen Bertasso-Hughes and Shannon Gaden about 50 yards back. Kieffer hit the 5-kilometer split in 18:14, with Bertasso-Hughes just nine seconds behind.

The 3M race is known for its “downhill to downtown” course, and Kieffer worked every downhill. By the 10K mark (36:31) on Great Northern Boulevard, she had a 23-second lead on Bertasso-Hughes.

“When I took the lead around 3 miles, I just didn’t look back,” Kieffer said.

She stepped on the gas after the 15K mark (9.3 miles) on Shoal Creek Boulevard, dropping the pace to 5:50 a mile, gaining more than a minute ahead of Bertasso-Hughes in the process. Kieffer crossed the finish line on San Jacinto Boulevard in 1:16:24, leaving Bertasso-Hughes and Gaden to battle for second. Gaden prevailed 1:17:00 to 1:17:49. Caroline Brooks came in fourth in 1:17:53, with Elizabeth Laseter rounding out the top five in 1:18:04.

“Allie was so far ahead that we were just racing for second place,” said Gaden, a newcomer to Austin by way of Denver. “I was able to catch her (Bertasso-Hughes) around 10 miles.”

“I’m really happy. … I felt surprisingly good. I needed to win this race,” said Kieffer, who plans to run the Ascension Seton Austin Half Marathon next month and is looking to run an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time next fall at the BMW Berlin Marathon.

The men’s race featured a stirring duel between Colorado Springs’ Gray and Austin’s Mitch Ammons, a 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier.

Gray, Ammons and University of Texas ace Kobe Yepez formed the lead pack in the early miles, passing through the 5K mark together in 15:17. But after that it was a two-man race as Gray and Ammons pulled away. Ammons took the lead at 10K, passing the mark in 30:33, just six seconds ahead of Gray. But by 15K (45:52) they were stride for stride, with 2019 3M champ Michael Morris moving into third place ahead of Yepez.

In a sprint to the finish line, Gray edged Ammons 1:04:23 to 1:04:27. Morris, the track and cross-country head coach at San Marcos High School, took third in 1:06:07, with Al Maeder fourth in 1:06:31 and Yepez fifth in 1:06:51.

“This was my first race of the year. Actually my first race in a while, so I wanted to be smart and run a progressive effort,” said Gray, a dominant figure in Colorado’s mountain running scene. “Mitch is a strong runner and made it an honest effort.”

Approximately 4,500 runners finished the race, the fifth in the Austin Distance Challenge. The sixth and final event is the Austin Marathon on Feb. 19.

“I found out two minutes before the race that there was a champion mountain runner entered, who’d gone 1:03 for the half-marathon," Ammons said. "We were yo-yoing back and forth the whole way. He’d pull ahead on the uphills, and I’d lead on the downhills. It was a lot of fun. My time was a personal best for me by more than a minute, and I wouldn’t have run this fast if it weren’t for Joe. He pushed me a lot. I really, really tried to catch him on the final straight. I gave it everything I had.”

Run to redemption: Austin marathoner Mitch Ammons has won the race of life, too

When Austin’s Mitch Ammons qualified for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials at the California International Marathon on Dec. 4 in Sacramento people asked him what college he had run for. His answer was, “I didn’t.”

“Qualifying for the Olympic trials marathon without a collegiate running background? Almost unheard of,” said Ammons' coach, Jeff Cunningham.

Ammons, 33, played football and ran track as a high school freshman at Dallas Bishop Lynch, even popping a speedy 4-minute, 50-second mile. But then he quit sports. He pretty much quit everything.

“That’s when drugs kicked in,” said Ammons. “I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

Ironically, Ammons went on to attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2008, an NCAA Division I distance running powerhouse. But he never thought about making the track or cross-country team, not even as a walk-on. Instead he partied, he said, escalating his marijuana habit to opioids.

“It was a slow progression,” Ammons said. “I went to the University of Arkansas to party. I started using Oxycontin my freshman year there and I loved it. It quickly became an addiction.

“I clearly remember the first time I had withdrawals,” he said. “I thought I had the flu, and of course took more Oxycontin and that fixed it. At that point I understood I was addicted. Oxycontin turned to heroin along with meth, because heroin was cheaper. I switched from pills and smoking it and started shooting up as a sophomore.”

Like many addicts, Ammons was in out and out of rehab — in his case, six times. He’d always relapse, sometimes the same day he got out. “I’d even try to smuggle drugs in to rehab,” Ammons said. “It’s amazing how much it takes over the survival part of the brain.”

But something finally clicked that sixth time at a rehab center in Kerrville, and when Ammons moved to Austin in 2015, that marked the beginning of his sobriety. Still, he wasn’t exactly in good shape. “I was a two-pack a day smoker and ate junk food and didn’t exercise at all,” he said.

But in January 2018, he joined Gilbert’s Gazelles, a local running program coached by nationally renowned Gilbert Tuhabonye. The long-lost spark of a budding high school miler — all but extinguished — caught fire. His path to redemption was clear.

“That was the beginning of my running journey,” said Ammons, who is an Austin real estate agent. “Gilbert said, ‘I don’t think you realize how good you are.’ He believed in me.”

Ammons got serious about his running a year later, and sought out Cunningham, who coaches a group of top-tier runners in Austin. It didn’t take long before he began hitting notable times, starting with a time of 1 hour, 7 minutes, 38 seconds at the 2019 Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth, Minn.

“You can measure an athlete’s metrics in a lab and make predictions regarding their potential. But that does not tell the whole story,” Cunningham said. “Mitch has the ability to work through discomfort and to endure pain — the essence of distance running. He’s as tough as they come.”

In Oct. 2021 Ammons ran the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in 2:23:56 — placing 24th in a world major race. He followed that with a win at the 2021 BMW Dallas Half Marathon in 1:06:42 and lowered his half-marathon time still further a few months later, posting a 1:05:28 at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in January of this year.

“That showed me I could probably break 2:20 (in the marathon),” said Ammons, who by then had his eye on an Olympic marathon qualifying time.

“It turned out Mitch had a fever during the Aramco Half,” Cunningham said. “He had appendicitis, and a few days later was in the hospital having an emergency appendectomy. That epitomizes everything he is as a competitor. His ability to endure pain is off the charts. I was concerned about his health but impressed nonetheless.”

Under the watchful eye of Cunningham, Ammons built up to running 110 miles a week, training with top area runners David Fuentes and Ronan O’Shea. The 2024 Olympic marathon trials qualifying time is 2:18:00 or better, a one-minute drop from the 2020 standard of 2:19:00. But Ammons was ready.

“As a runner you don’t really know your potential until a race clicks, and then the confidence starts to compound,” said Fuentes, a two-time Olympic marathon trials runner and the 2022 Statesman Capitol 10,000 champ. “Mitch has been training with some of the best runners in Austin, and he’s flourished as a result. It’s been a remarkable progression.”

“My coach gave me a very different buildup from previous ones, focusing on tempo runs,” Ammons said. “I nailed every workout. On one 21-mile training run, I averaged 5:08 per mile for the second half of it. Headed into CIM, I was confident I could run a good race.”

At the California International Marathon, Ammons made it through the halfway mark in 1:08.30 and then he said he picked it up. "It hurt, but I tired to get every bit out of my legs that I could," he said.

And that’s exactly what he did. Seven years after going sober, Ammons crossed the finish line at CIM in 2:16:48, qualifying for the Olympic trials in Orlando that are scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024. To date, only 106 men have met the standard, including another area runner Will Nation, former Cedar Park High School runner Parker Stinson and former Vista Ridge High runner Zachary Ornelas.

“It took a couple of days for it to really sink in," Ammons said. "It was pretty emotional to think of where I was seven years ago and where I am now. I’m living a life beyond my wildest dreams. I never, ever thought I’d be where I am today.

"I attribute running to all the positive changes in my life: my friends, my job, everything," he continued. “Running has taught me so much. You could say I wasted a large amount of my young adult life. But I have no regrets. I probably wouldn’t be who I am today without those struggles.”

Joseph Hale and Yanet Castro Aguilar won the men’s and women’s marathons, respectively

Most of Sunday’s runners at the BMW Dallas Marathon had been waiting two years to feel the euphoria of crossing the finish line in front of city hall.

Joseph Hale had three years of waiting under his belt after finishing fourth in 2018 and not running the race in 2019.

So when the Dallas resident crossed the finish line to win the 50th Dallas Marathon with a time of 2:28:42, he pumped his fist and let out a celebratory yell.

“It’s literally more than a life goal,” Hale said. “I don’t get emotional very often, but I’m going to get emotional about this.”

Joseph Hale crossing the finish line with a time of 2:28:42 to become the winner of the 50th Dallas Marathon.“I’ve literally dreamed of running that corridor for the last three years,” he said.

He just edged runner-up Joseph Darda of Fort Worth, who was about 20 to 30 seconds behind for the last 12 miles of the race. Darda crossed the finish line with a time of 2 hours, 29 minutes, 14 seconds.

Hale said having someone right behind pushed him to go harder but also forced him to be strategic.

This was the second straight weekend Hale finished a marathon.

He ran the California International Marathon the previous Sunday in Sacramento, Calif., finishing with a time of 2:26:44. He said he felt the mileage in his legs by the 10th or 11th mile.

“I wasn’t going for time; that’s what my race last week was about,” Hale said. “I actually don’t really know my time. I don’t really care. I won.”

More than 17,500 runners competed in Sunday’s races, and over 26,000 people competed over the entire weekend, which set a record.

The women’s winner was Solyenetzitl Selene Yanet Castro Aguilar of Zacatecas, Mexico, who finished with a time of 2:52:20.

She spent the first part of the race pacing with another competitor but, unbeknownst to her, the other runner was running the half marathon and soon split off in a different direction.

Castro Aguilar said she has been dealing with injuries over the past few years. She has spent the past three months training very hard for Sunday, and she took full advantage of the opportunity.

“I’ve been waiting three years to run this,” she said through a translator. “I was very happy and smiling all the way.”

It was the first marathon for Bradley. She ran at Baylor and was an NCAA cross country championship individual qualifier in 2017.

“This is kind of a full-circle moment because I went through some injuries that at the time I thought were career ending,” Bradley said. “To be able to run a marathon, it’s like all my dreams coming true.”

It was a banner year for first-time competitors. Both half marathon winners, Mitch Ammons and Kelsey Bruce, and women’s ultra marathon winner Megan Smyth were running at the event for the first time.

Bruce and Hale are best friends, meeting each other when they were both runners at Dallas Baptist from 2011-15.

They even ran the first few miles of Sunday’s race together before embarking on their own separate, winning journeys.

Bruce won the half marathon with a time of 1:14:35. She moved to Wichita Falls earlier this year after being hired as the head coach of Midwestern State’s cross country and track teams. Being able to come back to her hometown of 10 years and win the half marathon in front of her friends, family and coach was special.

“It’s always fun to hear your name on the course from people you love,” Bruce said.

So with her friend still on the road, Bruce stuck around after receiving her medal and award, joining the cheering brigade for Hale.

And as Hale entered the final length of his winning run, one voice stood out amid the crowd cheering him on.

“With 600 to go, she was there telling me that you got it,” Hale said. “She knows how I finish. She knows I can finish terribly. So when she said that I had it, I knew I had it.”