El Cajon’s St. Patrick’s Day half marathon a community affair

The chip winner in El Cajon’s St. Patrick’s Day Half Marathon female 5K division was Leana Mason, chip timed at 20:42.5. Top male 5K chipped time winner was Kyle Gabrielson at 18:07.7 on a slightly over-cast Sunday for the 5th annual El Cajon USATF certified race.

Chip winner? Registered race participants had a race bib with a timing chip in it that tracked times when they ran over start and finish chip reading mats. Devon Yard with Gemini Next, along with others, manned the computers overseeing tracking of runners.

The chip winner in El Cajon’s St. Patrick’s Day Half Marathon female 5K division was Leana Mason, chip timed at 20:42.5. Top male 5K chipped time winner was Kyle Gabrielson at 18:07.7 on a slightly over-cast Sunday for the 5th annual El Cajon USATF certified race.

Chip winner? Registered race participants had a race bib with a timing chip in it that tracked times when they ran over start and finish chip reading mats. Devon Yard with Gemini Next, along with others, manned the computers overseeing tracking of runners.

Race board of directors’ member Meredith Stowers, a volunteer on loan from LoanDepot, had the numbers as in “There were 1,200 registered participants” adding “We’re also raising money for charities like St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center.”

The 5K included a health and fitness expo, a finish line festival, green mile start, half marathon start, Main street start, tribes and clans start, runner’s beer festival, and a costume contest.

Rebecca Bell, co-owner of CrossFit La Mesa, along with her husband, Chad, offered crossfit activities like box jumps, burpees, and snatches to the post-race participants.

Race volunteers also manned the bag drop tables that allowed runners to stash their valuables in a lime-green tote labelled with their race bib number while they did the Irish themed run.

Mark Wieder with Spectrum Audio and Lucas Fisher with Audio Design filled the air with Irish tunes created on Pandora on a music station and handled audio needs for the event. Wieder cited the Irish Rovers and Drunken Sailors, doing Irish standards and shanties, as some of the groups he selected to play via Pandora.

The race was also broken down with chip timed scores printed out and posted after the race for all to see. The timed postings were broken down by gender and age with the age range covering 1-99.

The craft beer garden, sponsored by Sycuan, served up beers from Iron Fist Brewing Co., Burning Beard Brewing Co., and Ninkasi Brewing Company. Hooley’s and Chubby food truck were on hand to supply food but restaurants like Por Favor were open to service the green crowd as well.

So what does the female 5K winner, Leana Mason, 23, a Brooklyn, New York native marine now stationed at Camp Pendleton, eat for breakfast?  “Oatmeal, yogurt, and salmon” she said. “For race training I do tempo pace, fast pace, and long runs balanced out with strength training.”

Visit:  St. Patrick’s Day Half Marathon’s Facebook page for complete race results.