Boston Athletic Association
Early results are in from this morning's 111th running of the Boston Marathon, and a number of Madison residents have turned in impressive performances -- all the more so considering the wind, rain and cold temperatures generated by the Nor'easter pummeling New England this morning. While the rain let up about an hour into this year's marathon, temperatures were still in the 40s.
Out of respect for those of you who may have recorded the 2007 Boston Marathon this morning during its broadcast on the Versus Network and may be looking forward to playing back the disc and watching the race unfold, I'll refrain from any spoilers regarding results for the overall men's, women's and wheelchair contenders.
Let's focus instead on Team Madison.
Leading the way for the Madison contingent: Paul Laeseke, 28, with an official time of two hours, 34 minutes and 28 seconds. This placed him 75th overall, 71st among men and 65th in his division.
Chris Dresser, 23, was the next Madisonian across the finish line, in 2:49:44, good for 355th overall out of more than 20,000 runners who started the 2007 Boston Marathon.
Christopher Thomas, 32, was next in for Madison, 420th overall in 2:51:59.
Next came Andrew Osmond, 33, in 2:54:21 to place 519th.
Adam Nickel, 26, clocked 2:57:20 as the 695th overall finisher.
Michael Pajewski, 40, was timed at 3:01:45 for 1,061st overall and 221st in his division.
Edgar Samaniego, 31, ran a 3:02:36 to finish 1,114th.
Timothy Hildebrandt, 28, followed in 3:02:59, placing 1,141st.
Randall Abendroth, 47, finished 2,529th overall in 3:15:18.
And the top Madison woman was Rebecca Peebles, 25. She was timed at 3:17:48, good for 222nd among women in her age group, and 2,986th overall -- a rank that, when all the other runners who started the race have been accounted for, ought to place her among the top 15 to 20% of all finishers.
Rebecca Metzler, 24, was the second Madison woman to cross the finish line, with a time of 3:18:14.
To learn how the rest of your Madison friends and neighbors did today at the Boston Marathon, visit bostonmarathon.org, click on the Results tab, select Searchable Results, enter "Madison" in the City field and "Wisconsin" in the State field, raise the number in the "Limit my search to the top" field from 10 to 100 or more, and click the Search button.
Laurels all around.
