Written by Michelle Kempton
Published in Sportstream
This morning, Stacy Chesnutt won her 3rd half-marathon in 3 weeks. In October, Chesnutt has competed in 3 different provinces and won every race.
Chesnutt’s first win in October was in Nova Scotia at the Valley Harvest half-marathon where she set a personal record with an impressive 1:27:24 and finished first for females. The next week, she travelled to the Prince Edward Island half-marathon. Even when faced with intense headwinds, Chesnutt still managed a 1:29:51 finish and claimed the title of first female again. Today in New Brunswick, Chesnutt shaved over a minute off her previous personal record from two weeks ago and won first female for the Legs for Literacy half-marathon with a time of 1:26:17.
Chesnutt credits her friend Emily Hamilton (another Dartmouth resident) for helping push her into a triple crown victory today. Hamilton also set a personal record of her own in New Brunswick (1:26:48) and was on the heels of Chesnutt for the last 10K of the half-marathon. Hamilton finished the half-marathon in 2nd place, only 30 seconds behind Chesnutt. Chesnutt explained that today was a dream scenario for both of them. For talented and hyper-competitive runners like Chesnutt and Hamilton, they both wanted to win today and having another fierce contender at the start-line is what both needed to push them to set personal records. Both athletes were thrilled to have set personal records for their last half-marathon of the season.
Chesnutt has just returned from Spain, where she ranked 7th in the world for her age group in the World Duathlon Championships. On the local race scene, even being 15 years senior to many of the other contenders, Chesnutt is proving to be difficult to beat, regardless of the age-gap. Chesnutt will wrap up her 2011 race season in two weeks, when she runs the New York Marathon.