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Palisades Will Rogers 5 & 10K Run Picks Up Where It Left Off

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Hundreds of people registered within half an hour of the start of Monday’s Palisades Will Rogers 5 & 10K Run, causing the air horn to go off six minutes late, but at 8:21 a.m. on the Fourth of July, for the first time in three years, the race that local residents and out-of-towners have grown to love over the last 45 years, began on Alma Real Drive.   

After a stirring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner was delivered by Palisadian and Harvard-Westlake High senior Kate Hassett, official race starter Michael Ricks, chief executive of lead sponsor Providence Saint John’s Health Center, took the microphone and wished the field of 1,900 runners good luck and eight words of wisdom: “The faster you  run, the sooner you’re done!” With that he sent the runners on their way. 

Attired from head to toe in his red, white and blue American flag outfit, announcer Bob Benton teased that new director Thomas Hathaway had signed a 10-year contract (to which Hathaway playfully responded he’d cut the mic off) to oversee the event that was canceled in 2020 and 2021 for lack of permits due to the coronavirus pandemic, despite the spirited effort of former director and race founder Brian Shea.   

A giant screen was set up at the  Palisades Recreation Center where onlookers could track the runners’ progress thanks to a drone camera buzzing in the skies above and the first person spotted rounding Toyopa and approaching the finish line at the park entrance was 17-year-old Jake Ratkovich, a senior-to-be at Loyola High, who needed 15 minutes and 41 seconds to traverse the 3.1-mile route through the streets of the Huntington, with a contingent of his fellow Cubs not far behind.

The Hancock Park denizen posted the fastest time since the course was lengthened by about one-tenth of a mile to become USATF-certified in 2015 and the swiftest since Ravi Amarawansa, then a 20-year-old psychology major at the University of San Francisco, clocked 15:13 in 2009. Hometown hero Peter Gilmore set the unofficial 5K record of 14:10, accomplished on the slightly shorter course, in 2003.

Ratkovich is Loyola’s fourth 5K winner in the last five races, joining Riviera’s own Charlie Sherman in 2016, Shane Bissell in 2017 and Ethan Stauber in 2018. A Harvey Mudd College junior named Evan Hassman was the 2019 winner.

In second, 18 seconds behind the winner, was Palisades High distance runner Max Fields, the City Section cross country champion in the fall and 3200-meter champ in the spring. 

However, he and Dolphin trackster Noah Wexler (fourth in 16:54) were not enough to prevent Loyola from claiming the Dick Lemen Trophy with the lowest team score in the second annual high school competition as 10 white-clad Cubs placed in the top 20.

Brian Duff, winner of the first-ever Palisades Lutheran Church 5K in October, was fifth overall and first in the 40-45 male division in 17:20.    

The first female to cross the finish line was 2020 Pali High alum Darby Green, who will soon begin her junior year at Georgetown University.

“My parents run this every year but this is my first time,” said Green, who lives in Santa Monica, matriculated through the Junior Lifeguard program at Will Rogers Beach and swam freestyle and backstroke on Palisades’ City championship swim team. “I ran a lot as a kid but this is only my second 5K. My first was the Rose Bowl 5K in Pasadena last July 3 [she ran 20:07] but I like this one better because I’m from here.”

Beating her kickboxer dad Baxter for the first time was 9-year-old Ally Humby, who won her age division.

The 10K course, regarded as one of the toughest in California because of the grueling switchbacks in Will Rogers Park, was attempted by only  463 runners and first to complete the 6.2-miler was Shane Brouwer, a 2015 Pali High graduate fresh off winning the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon in Ventura in 2:27:24 on June 5. Also an LA County lifeguard with siblings and fellow Dolphin alums Kian and Sydney, Brouwer went to Santa Monica College for two years then went to trade school and now does high-voltage switching for the City of Glendale.

“This is the first time I’ve run it in years and that hill on the way back up Sunset hurts so bad,” said Brouwer, who turned 25 on June 19. “[Five-time 10K champion] Tonny Okello always won it, but I didn’t see him today so I honestly didn’t know what to expect.”

The 10K female winner in 41:23 was ex-Pali High cross country and track captain, Sarah Bentley, now on the track team at MIT. She is living in Seattle this summer while interning at Blue Origin Aerospace  but was home in Pacific Palisades for the holiday and decided to give her hometown race a go.   

“I didn’t really train specifically for this—I’ve just been doing my usual summer workouts but it’s fun to run through the neighborhood and see a bunch of friends,” said Bentley, who grew up near St. Matthew’s and went to Marquez Elementary and Paul Revere Middle School. “I miss Pali but my coach [at MIT] is  great, I’ve grown a lot and I learned how to avoid burnout.”   

While at school, Bentley resides in a sorority house in Boston. She won the City 3200 in 2017 and 2018.

In keeping with tradition, 81-year old Paul Junger from West LA and 75-year-old Larry Meyer of Glendale donned their holey and faded t-shirts from the inaugural race. Having run the 10K every year until switching to the 5K in 2018, each took third place in his age group.

“It took 45 years for me to finally win something,” Meyer joked upon picking up his medal. “Paul and I did the 10K together for 40 years… now even the 5K’s a struggle. It’s not getting easier, that’s for sure!” 

Junger’s brother George lives in the Palisades and was a timekeeper on Mile 1, so Paul waved ‘hi’ to him as he jogged by. He calls his 1978 shirt a “collector’s item” and hand washes it to keep it odor-free after over four decades of wear and tear.    

“I did it miss it the last two years, hopefully it’s back to stay,” Junger said. “The miles are getting longer and longer. I’m more tired now in the 5K than I used to be running the 10K. I guess it’s normal at my age.”

On the opposite end of the age spectrum were Village School students Ethan and Ava Montminy, the winners of the half-mile Kids’ Fun Run. Nine-year-old Ethan is a PPBA All-Star while Ava, 7, moves up to the 8U division in AYSO in the fall.