Monday, October 27, 2014
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Sunday’s 40th annual Peace Race drew nearly 1,700 runners, who were treated with windy, yet sunny conditions and temperatures in the low 50s.
By Joe Scalzo | scalzo@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
With his (very, very) pregnant wife, Ro, taking pictures from the back of the Peace Race pace truck, Andy Morgan ran through Mill Creek Park on Sunday morning in hopes of not just finishing strong, but finishing ... period.
“She’s due Nov. 12, so technically she’s full-term and it could happen at any time now,” said Morgan, who started out as high school teammates with Ro (Rupe) at Maplewood High School. “I told her if I was going to have to pull off the race, I wanted it to be because I pulled off and not because someone told me, ‘You have to hurry up and go to the hospital.’
“Fortunately, she held up. Knowing Ro, she’ll probably be late. That’s the MO for her.”
Morgan placed seventh overall in 30:39 — the highest finish for a Valley native at the 40th annual Peace Race, which drew just under 1,700 runners as well as racing legend Dick Beardsley, who is best known for his “Duel in the Sun” with Alberto Salazar at the 1982 Boston Marathon and who signed autographs during the event.
Morgan’s finish didn’t match his 2011 race when he finished second overall, but it was good enough for $350 in diaper money ... er, prize money.
“We came out of the park and there was a group of like five of us, and I was just reminiscing the moment of three years ago when I was second here,” said Morgan, whose father-in-law, Ted Rupe, was the race timer. “I knew anywhere from second to wherever I finished was possible, but I kind of came out of the back end of that [group].
“I don’t know if I ever pushed my body like that, but I just didn’t have it that last mile.”
Ro has done well in the race in past years — she was the fourth-fastest woman in 2012, finishing in 37:20.4 — but joked her daughter-to-be has turned her into an 11-minute miler.
The Morgans’ daughter doesn’t have a name yet — “Knowing Ro, I won’t know the name until we’re going home from the hospital; I won’t have much say in that” — and Andy was just happy to squeeze in one last race before fatherhood, not to mention winter.
“The weather was unbelievable,” he said. “We know a month from now, the Turkey Trot is going to be 0 [degrees] and snowing.”