Steve Bond: Gross wins age group in Cowtown

Ron Gross, just six days short of his 71st birthday, won the 70-74 age group in the CoreLogic Cowtown Half Marathon, held last Sunday in Sacramento, finishing in one hour, 49 minutes, 50.3 seconds. What is particularly amazing about Ron’s performance is that, despite never having run that far (13.1 miles) in his life, Ron ran his best age graded time over any distance as an adult, coming in at 74.32 percent. Ron won his age group by over five and a half minutes and, impressively, would have been second in the 65-69 age group. Looks like Ron is discovering untapped longer distance potential as he had never run a race farther than 10K before this year. V. Neelakantan, a veteran marathon and half marathon competitor, also ran a stellar time in the same race, finishing in one hour, 25:39.5, placing fourth in the 45-49 age group... [read full story]