Time to Trot

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

After a two-year hiatus, the Palisades DevelopmentTurkey Trot made a successful return Thanksgiving morning as hundreds of local runners, joggers and walkers gathered at Palisades High School’s Stadium by the Sea for the eighth edition of the 5/10K race that debuted in 2013. 

Approximately 1,600 runners registered—around 1,400 in the 5K and another 200 in the 10K—and participants were energized by the humor and enthusiasm of race emcee Sam Lagana, a lifelong Palisadian and the stadium voice of the Los Angeles Rams, who introduced national anthem singer Coco Kennedy, who attended Corpus Christi School and Marymount High and is now a freshman broadcasting major at the University of Texas. After her powerful rendition Kennedy, who sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association’s opening ceremonies as a fifth grader in 2015, ran the 5K through the Asilomar Bluffs and finished  14th out of 40 runners in her age division in 30 minutes, 26 seconds.

Helping Lagana count down the last 10 seconds and blowing the air horn to start the race were Corpus Christi second-graders Emily Dimartini, Audrey Going and Millie McKenna.

First to cross the finish line at the 50-yard stripe of the football field was Brentwood resident Will Sheehy, who set a new 5K course record  in 16:27, three seconds faster than Calvary Church of Pacific Palisades Pastor Ramin Razavi’s 2016 clocking that was equaled three years later by repeat winner Thomas Fitzpatrick. Sheehy just completed his freshman cross country season at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and before that ran cross country and track at Harvard-Westlake High in Studio City, where he won the Southern Section Division 3 title and took fourth in the 3200 meters at the state meet in the spring.

Coming in second place, eight seconds behind Sheehy, was former Pali High runner Noah Wexler, a classmate of Sheehy’s in sixth grade at Carlthorp Elementary. Wexler ran a personal-best 1:59.04 in the 800 meters at the City Section Championships in May.

The first female to complete the 5K was Georgia McCorkle, who was eighth overall in 19:07, one step and mere fractions of a second ahead of Christine Colby, who easily placed atop the female 35-45 age group. McCorkle starred in cross country at Agoura High, taking second place in the Southern Section Division 3 Finals last November and just wrapped up her first season at UC Berkeley. Third among the women was Daniela Quintero (19:41), who lives in Los Feliz and was texted about the event the night before from former teammates at Harvard-Westlake, where she ran cross country and track and was a midfielder on the soccer team. The Columbia University freshman praised the course, calling it “awesome” and “so much fun.” Five-time winner Tania Fischer set the 5K women’s record in 2014 with a time of 18:47.

Reflecting the holiday spirit was race announcer and former “Good Day LA” reporter Dorothy Lucey, who encouraged runners to stay hydrated and passed out gift bags. Twelve-year-old Heleena Barnett, a seventh-grader at Paul Revere Middle School who was fifth at the Delphic League Cross Country Finals, was first in the female 10-12 category in 21:32.

Pali High senior Ava Baak, who was the Dolphins’ top finisher in the CIF state meet two days later in Fresno, was second in the female 16-18 age group in 21:19, followed by Riviera resident Katharine Doble (21:42), a freshman on the Co-Ed sailing team at Brown University.

The women’s 10K winner was 36-year-old Charlotte Kane, who lives near the Village with her husband Kenny and boys Thor (7) and Max (5).   

Running the route for the first time, Kane finished in 43:41, a full 10 seconds faster than her time in the Palisades Will Rogers 10K on July 4, when she finished second to MIT runner Sarah Bentley, whom Kane coached throughout her years at Pali High.

“The course is up and down and coming up the hill on Temescal at the end was tough but I paced myself well,” said Kane, who is originally from Sweden and ran the 400 meters and 400 hurdles for the Swedish National Team from 2005-12 and ran track for two years at UCLA (2013-14). “I ran the Fourth of July 10K this summer and I’d have to say that one’s harder. I do triathlons now. I haven’t trained much this fall but I’d like to do a Half Ironman in the spring.”