Griffin Hay's 15:44 was just a whisker off the course record at the Fountain Creek Regional Park course. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Once again, the atmosphere at the Saucony/TCA Titan Thunder Invitational was charged. Once again, the athletes responded with a very nice set of races.
In fact, when the girls' race started, it looked for all the world like a replay of last year's race. Erin Hooker went out hard early and fashioned a lead at a pace that dared anyone to hang on. Passing through the mile at 5:23, she was at least seven seconds ahead of the entire field and starting to build her lead.
On this day, as on the same day 52 weeks ago, the race belonged to Erin Hooker. Nobody would ever threaten her lead. By the end of the race, Hooker had but nearly 30 seconds on the field, winning with a time about five seconds off of last year's course record.
But there was a more intriguing story developing behind Hooker. TCA's Shelby Stableford and Regan Mullen ran sid...
