Bluegrass 10,000: Ex-Cat fresh off Olympic trials, first-time racer set the pace
Katy Kunc for the last year trained for a spot in the Olympics, eyeing a berth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. She qualified for the U.S. trials finals, but her run ended there last week in Eugene, Ore.
That disappointment helped fuel a crushing victory Saturday in the female division of the annual Bluegrass 10,000. It was the 45th running of the race, its first since 2019, and the first time Kunc competed in it since 2018; she also won that edition. Her chip time — 33 minutes and 33.7 seconds — was two minutes and 19 seconds faster than her first go in Lexington’s Fourth of July weekend race three years ago.
“My focus all year was for the Olympic trials, so this was just a ‘for fun’ race that I had in the back of my mind,” said Kunc, who was a First Team All-American in cross country and an SEC champion in the steeplechase at the University of Kentucky. “I’m ready to take a break after a long year of training. This was my last good one before my break. It felt really good to win it.”
2021 Bluegrass 10,000: Complete results
Kunc was the 10th-fastest runner among all 1,665 in-person runners who registered Saturday. There were an additional 167 virtual participants and 140 “fun run” participants in the 1-mile race.
“It’s just good to see people out racing again after the last year that we had,” Kunc said.
Men’s winner
Logan Barrett, of Jeffersonville, Ind., won the men’s division with the top overall chip time of 29 minutes, 58.7 seconds, the only runner to break 30 minutes. It was a personal record by about 15 seconds.
“That was very unexpected,” Barrett said. “I just started my training cycle, so I don’t even have a workout under my belt. I really don’t know how I ran that today. But it was nice.”
It was Barrett’s first time running the Bluegrass 10,000, which had a slightly different early-course layout than in recent years. Participants started in front of the Lexington Public Library’s downtown branch, ran down Main Street to Thoroughbred Park, veered left on Eastern Avenue, left again at East Short Street before turning right onto North Limestone. They turned right again at Pleasant Stone Street, following that corridor back around Thoroughbred Park and onto Midland Ave before returning to Main Street southbound.
“The first half was rolling hills but it didn’t really stop anybody,” Barrett said. “There were five or six guys who went out right around 4:50 and I was about 10 seconds behind that. I didn’t take the lead until about halfway.”
That would have been about a mile into the return to Main/Richmond. Runners looped back around Richmond Road, near the former Shriner’s Hospital, before a 2-mile sprint to the start/finish line.
“It was a great course, and there were a lot of people out on the course cheering (us) on,” Barrett said. “ ... I love Lexington, they put on great events.”
Barrett, a 28-year-old who ran for St. Joseph’s College, a Division II school in Indiana, will return to Lexington in August for A Midsummer Night’s Run, a 5,000-meter event. He’s training for the 2022 Houston Marathon.
“I’m lucky enough to be in a sport where I can continue my passion after school,” said Barrett, a member of Long Distance Project, a fledgling club out of Louisville coached by Dave Long, a marathon runner who competed for Great Britain in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. “In other sports you can play in rec leagues and things like that, but I can still go out and compete at a very high level in my sport. I’m very thankful for that. It’s very fun and I plan to do it for some time to come.”
Zack Beavin, a former UK runner who won the race three straight years from 2017-2019, was the top Lexington and Kentucky finisher, and was fifth overall after clocking in at 31 minutes and 0.6 seconds, about 15 seconds faster than he ran as the winner in 2019.
Handchair winner
Dave Hartsek was the first participant to cross a finish line Saturday. The 62-year-old Lexingtonian was one of four racers in the handchair division, and finished the course in 30 minutes and 15 seconds. It was his seventh Bluegrass 10,000 win but first since the 1980s, he said. It was his 37th consecutive time racing in the event.
Hartsek, a recent retiree, decided to invest about $5,000 in new racing equipment and over the last year trained more than for prior races. Saturday’s weather conditions were ideal, too.
“I just do it for my own personal satisfaction, to see what I can do,” Hartsek said. “When I invested in a new bike last year, I was like, ‘OK, now you’ve got decent equipment, go see what you can do with it.’ I knew I was retiring and stuff so I couldn’t use that as an excuse.”
Notes
▪ Bryce Conley was the fastest collegiate runner. A freshman-to-be at Dayton, Conley finished second overall with a time of 30 minutes, 14.2 seconds. Sam Duncan, a teammate who will also be a freshman at Dayton, finished fourth.
▪ Leo Mcmillen, of Lexington, was the oldest male runner at 84, and ran the course in 1 hour, 40 minutes and 14.8 seconds. Elizabeth Allison, 80 and also of Lexington, ran 1:40:38.6 as the oldest female.
▪ The top overall team was John’s Run/Walk Shop Striders, of which Beavin is a part. They also had third-place runner Christopher Phillips-Hart along with finishers No. 6 (William Caldwell), 12 (Sam Day) and 15 (Justin Verlinden) to round out their point-scorers.
▪ Most runners hailed from the United States, but two — Carter and Sonya Lindsey — call Germany home.
Top overall finishers
1. Logan Barrett, Jeffersonville, Ind., 29:58.7
2. Bryce Conley, Tipp City, Ohio, 30:14.2
3. Christopher Phillips-Hart, Rockville, Md., 30:22.5
4. Sam Duncan, Lebanon, Ohio, 30:36.2
5. Zack Beavin, Lexington, Ky., 31:00.6
6. William Cadwell, South Haven, Mich., 31:16.8
7. Chad Phillips-Hart, Louisville, Ky., 31:43.6
8. Tony White, Nashville, Tenn., 31:51.9
9. Joseph Drabot, Louisville, Ky., 32:11.4
10. Katy Kunc, Ardsley, N.Y., 33:33.7
11. Dylan Rich, Lexington, Ky., 33:59.1
12. Sam Day, Lexington, Ky., 34:20.7
13. Cole Grecco, Lexington, Ky., 34:23.1
14. Charlotte Imer, Cookeville, Tenn., 34:51.2
15. Paul McCaffrey, Lexington, Ky., 34:51.9
16. Justin Verlinden, Lexington, Ky., 34:54.1
17. Tyler Dickinson, Lexington, Ky., 34:57.1
18. Justin Chavez, Lexington, Ky., 35:19.5
19. Akihiro Nishimoto, Lexington, Ky., 35:34.1
20. Arlo Scott, Lexington, Ky., 35:39.3
21. Henry Scott, Lexington, Ky., 35:44.2
22. Raymond McKinney, Berea, Ky., 35:47.2
23. Sean Taylor, Bardstown, Ky., 35:51.5
24. Joe Buckles, Lexington, Ky., 36:24.2
25. Joshua Price, Lexington, Ky., 36:32.0
Top female finishers
1. Katy Kunc, Ardsley, N.Y., 33:33.7
2. Charlotte Imer, Cookeville, Tenn., 34:51.2
3. Ruby Wyles, Cookeville, Tenn., 36:51.2
4. Betsy Laski, Lexington, Ky., 38:19.5
5. Carol Harston, Louisville, Ky., 38:50.0
6. Caroline Kaplan, Lexington, Ky., 39:29.3
7. Jenny Walker, Lexington, Ky., 41:18.5
8. Scarlet Stimson, Essex Junction, Vt., 41:27.8
9. Victoria Holliday, Lexington, Ky., 42:04.0
10. Emily Liddle, Waynesburg, Ky., 42:09.2
This story was originally published July 3, 2021 at 2:15 PM.
