For the fastest runners at the Yorktown Fourth of July 8K race, it was either a family affair, or a homecoming, or both. The race, benefiting the York County Historical Museum, and timed by Jim Elder and his crew at Colonial Sports, was held on the standard USATF-certified 8K loop course on the Yorktown Battlefield Tour Roads, adjacent to York High. The start was underneath the Route 17 overpass, and the finish at Surrender Field. The course, under sunny, hot and humid conditions, was thankfully mostly shaded on the tour roads, with several water stops for hydration.
Elder emailed, “This is the best 8K course on the Virginia Peninsula! It is an incredible privilege to run or walk on the 8K or 5K course in the place and day America won independence. We want families to start their 4th of July celebration by running or walking together on this fantastic venue.”
There were 259 finishers in the featured 8K, along with more in the 5K fun run. The top three overall men were Matthew DeVillers, 35, of Mystic, Conn. (27:25.3), followed by Derek Ferreira, 21, of Tolland, Conn. (29:47.7) and Christian Wiscovitch, 34, of Chesapeake (31:26.6).
The top three women were all in the top nine overall, including women’s winner Emma Rogers, 24, of Williamsburg, who was the third runner across the finish line. Rogers was timed in 30:00.9, and was followed by Katherine Irgens, 34, of Mystic, Conn. (31:48.7) and Liz Starbuck, 30, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire (33:01.2).
For women’s runner up Irgens, the 8K was a true homecoming, as she was a student at York High. She texted, “We came down to Yorktown to run the roads I enjoyed in high school while visiting family. We would definitely come back to do the race again and always enjoy traveling for races. Definitely more challenging now with our new baby, Killian, but I hope that he will catch the running bug too!”
Although she and husband Matthew DeVillers were registered as Mystic, Conn., they don’t live there anymore. Irgens texted, “We signed up for the race and did it in transit to my new duty station in D.C. I was originally a submarine officer and laterally transferred to the engineering duty officer community. I will be working at the Navy yard at a submarine program office. I ran for two years in high school, actually for York High School. The race course was a pretty popular loop I remember running in high school. I was not a very good runner, middle of the pack. I went to Purdue and studied aerospace engineering and was on the crew team. I ran mostly for cross training and started getting more serious about it after college. Since then, I have been training mostly for the marathon distance and have also run for the all-Navy sports team several times. I even had the opportunity to run for the U.S. marathon team at the military world games in Wuhan, China in October 2019. My PRs in the half and full marathon are 1:17 and 2:46. My ultimate goal is to qualify for the Olympic trials.”
Matthew DeVillers ran for the Naval Academy, and is friends with Bethany and Jordan Spector, now from Virginia Beach, and both also Navy grads, and frequent competitors at Colonial Road Runners races.
Women’s winner Rogers, who just completed her graduate studies at William & Mary’s School of Education, and will start her teaching career next month at Clara Byrd Baker Elementary in Williamsburg, is currently in third place for the 2024 CRR Grand Prix, with three wins and one second place, good for 39 points (trailing just Emily Honeycutt and Isabella Strumke, but with fewer races). Rogers won the Colonial Half Marathon, the Kingswood Klam 5K and the FURever 8K, and was second at the DOG Street 5K. At the FURever 8K, held at Jamestown High, her time was 29:59, one second faster than her July 4 time. Rogers emailed, “I was surprised with how similar the times were. I did a workout for the Yorktown 8K, so it’s nice to know I can run that time in different ways. I don’t have any race plans [for the summer], but will probably jump into some 5Ks.” The CRR will take their summer break for July, and will resume Grand Prix racing on Aug. 10 (with the CDR 5K at The Vineyards at Jockeys Neck, and the Aug. 17 Raising the Roof 5K at the Landfall at Jamestown course).
It was also a high school homecoming for the third-place women’s finisher Elizabeth (Liz) Starbuck, a Lafayette High grad, who, like Irgens, has also moved since entering the July 4 race. She emailed, “When I signed up for the race I was living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but now I’m in Boston. I still work for Kiewit, a large construction company in North America. We try to get back to Virginia twice a year, this Fourth of July we were home visiting my step dad and grandparents. I really haven’t stopped running since I was 15 [at Lafayette], besides a couple of injury-forced breaks. Recently I started running for Northwodos Athletics and am being coached by Ben True [one of America’s best distance runners]. I’ve found an awesome running community in Portsmouth, NH and Boston.”
“This year I ran the Boston Marathon and it was a tough one. Immediately after crossing the finish line I swore off running any other marathons, but a couple weeks later I signed up for CIM [California International Marathon]. I figured since CIM isn’t till December that will give me enough time to mentally and physically recover. This summer I’m just going to run shorter races, a Tracksmith track 5K in Boston and then Beach to Beacon [Maine]. There’s never a shortage of races in the Northeast, but it’s always fun to run a race in your hometown! The Yorktown 8K was one of the prettiest courses I’ve ever run on! Almost made the humidity bearable! I ran it as a workout trying to make it a progression with a hard effort for the last 2K but the weather and travel got the best of me and I didn’t quite hit the mark, the effort was certainly there though. Emma and I cooled down, so now I’ll hopefully have a buddy to run with when I visit Williamsburg next time.”
It was a family affair for two Williamsburg runners, Connie Glueck, 60, and Doyle Gage, 68. Glueck won the women’s 60-64 age group by more than four minutes with a time of 41:36, but was thrilled to have her sister Tanna Torcaso, 70, of Jacksonville, N.C. also competing in the 8K. Glueck emailed, “My sister Tanna wanted to do a race and they didn’t have any in Jacksonville on July 4th. She got an email from Colonial Sports about the race and decided to fly up. Once she told me she was coming up to do it I decided to join her. That was her first 8K. She only started running last year at age 69.”
For Gage, he had the honor of running with his twin brother David, 68, of Tucson, Ariz., and they placed first (Doyle, 44:10) and second (David, 53:23) for the men’s 65-69 age group. David’s son Robert just moved to West Virginia, so David and his wife visited them, then came to Williamsburg to see his twin Doyle, and his wife Debra.
Doyle emailed, “We grew up in California and are very close in all our activities, including running. We ran track (1 and 2 mile) and cross country in high school and were always close with our times. After high school, I went to the Air Force Academy and David went to the University of Arizona, met his wife there and stayed in Arizona. I met my wife Debra while in the Air Force, she was a runner too.” They later raced while in South Dakota, then Guam and Riverside, Calif., before moving to Williamsburg from Europe in 2011. This year they are focusing on half marathons around the country, and in Stockholm, Sweden.
Rick Platt is president of Colonial Road Runners.
