Bacon Street 5K Recap

by Rick Platt

With Williamsburg being both a tourist town and the host of many high-quality athletic events, you never know who might show up in town for competition. Saturday morning at the 18th annual Bacon Street Run for Mental Health 5K at Eastern State Hospital , two women with great credentials but recent training woes, Melissa Rittenhouse of Charlottesville and Jennifer Quarles of Williamsburg , met one ascendant runner, Mercedes Castillo-D’Amico of Newport News .


That trio went 1-2-3 in the women’s overall race, with Rittenhouse prevailing by a half minute in 19:44, with six-time Colonial Road Runners Grand Prix champion Quarles at 20:17 and Virginia state 5K and 10K record-holder (women’s 55-59 age group) Castillo-D’Amico at 20:24. Rittenhouse, 37, is a three-time Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier (2004, ’08 and ’12), who traveled to Williamsburg to cheer on two Ragged Mountain Running training partners who were competing in a Saturday triathlon in Jamestown, while Rittenhouse was doing a training race at the Mental Health event.

For the men John Piggott, 48, of Williamsburg (17:11) and Todd Kessler, 30, of Newport News (17:27) went 1-2 for the 5K, held on a warm and extremely humid morning over a mostly-flat loop course on the hospital roads. Piggott (42 points after seven races) and Kessler (38 points) are also 1-2 in the 2013 Colonial Road Runners Grand Prix series.

Rittenhouse has a marathon PR of 2:43:38 (Houston 2010), a half marathon PR of 1:16:50 and a 5K PR of 17:00, but after the 2012 Olympic Trials Marathon began having troubles. As she describes it, “I had been struggling with running and having difficulty breathing last year and kept going to the doctor, and they couldn't find anything wrong. Then last August I got sick and went to the ER and they told me I had two pulmonary embolisms and was admitted to the hospital. I have been on coumadin since then and finally just got off May 1st. I am glad I finally know the answer and hope to return to competitive running again in the next year. I have been training again for the past six months and just ran Boston in 2:54, not quite what I wanted, but I am just glad I can still run, and appreciate it so much more now.” Rittenhouse, from Sheffield , OH , now teaches at James Madison University . She attended the University of Dayton , where she was runner-up in both the track 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the Atlantic-10 conference championships. This was her first visit to Williamsburg .

Quarles, 41, has also had her recent troubles, and had to take six weeks off from running due to pain from the piriformis, a tight hamstring and a tight lower back, all on her left side, which woke her up at night. Still not totally healed, she is concentrating on stretching and some yoga. Quarles explained, “I ran 30 minutes on Wednesday and 45 on Thursday, then raced today. Felt great to be racing, although the last mile was hard! I'm excited to get back to running and racing but we leave for England and Wales on the 18th for two weeks so I will have more rest time. I never stretched so my muscles are really tight. Wish I enjoyed stretching like I enjoy running.”

Castillo-D’Amico at age 55 has had a great racing year. She set the Virginia state record for women 55-59 at last December’s Sentara Sleighbell 5K (20:12), and broke it May 4th at the Walsingham Academy 5K Run (20:01). She has bettered the previous women’s 55-59 state 10K record time of 42:38 three times (41:53 at Fort Eustis 10K in March, 42:26 at Monument Avenue 10K in April, and 41:40 at May’s Elizabeth River Run 10K), but only the Monument Avenue race counts, due to problems with course certification at Ft. Eustis and the ERR (where she had the highest age-graded performance of all the runners with a national-class 88.79%). Her seven-second margin behind Quarles is her closest ever to that icon. Castillo-D’Amico also broke the only Mental Health race age-group record Saturday, her 20:24 smashing the previous mark of 22:31 by Joan Coven in 1999.

There were 82 finishers in the 5K run/walk. The event was organized by and benefited Bacon Street , which started in 1971. This year the race was sponsored by Riverside Doctor’s Hospital Williamsburg, along with Colonial Sports. Race director Sandy Fagan of Bacon Street describes the facility, “ Bacon Street is a family-focused provider for families with children living with a variety of behavioral disorders. The organization utilizes evidence-based practices to attend to the whole family, and the whole-person in addressing substance abuse, mental health issues, and adolescents with high functioning autism. Bacon Street receives no funding from government sources, and is a partner with both Williamsburg and Peninsula United Ways , the Williamsburg Community Health Foundation, and Autism Speaks.”