Northshore Inline Marathon
Posted at: 09/18/2012 7:31 PM
| Updated at: 09/19/2012 10:43 PM
By: Laura Kennedy
lkennedy@wdio.com
If there is one local race where the weather can be your best friend or your worst enemy, the Northshore Inline Marathon is it.
"I don't like cold. I don't like rain either," said Wesley Gandy of Richmond, Virginia. "I've heard from everybody it's usually raining and cold. That definitely would have changed things."
But the conditions were just right for Gandy, who soared across the finish line to win the marathon in one hour, three minutes.
"I was doing intervals, so I'd blast out and then let them catch me and then get back in the pack and relax," Gandy said. "So it was kind of my race all the time."
In the final stretch, Luis Mejia of Bogota, Colombia was nipping at Gandy's heels.
"They said Luis was nowhere near me at the finish but it felt like he was so close to me," Gandy said.
This was Mejia's best finish in the nine times he has competed here, but for him, this race was about more than that.
"Second place is in honor of my mother who died four months ago," Mejia said. "It's in honor of my mother. I love my mother."
The Northshore Inline Marathon is in its 17th year. But this time, there was an added bonus. The winners are now national champions. When Briana Kramer of Salt Lake City crossed the finish line, she also completed a three-peat.
"It is such a great feeling to know that you have it, there's no doubt, no question in your mind, and you can just stand up at the line and be like, yes. I love it," Kramer said.
No matter where they're from, these elite skaters agree the scenery of this course can't be beat.
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