Hey! The Prairie Fire Rabbit needs a name. Help us name him/her. Here's mine: Smoke. As in "Where there's Smoke there's Fire--Prairie Fire!!!" Let's hear your suggestions.
As a former runner, it has been disappointing in the last several years to watch the Wichita racing scene fall into further decline. I miss the years of the River Run where it took something under 31:00 minutes in the 10K just to secure a top 10 place, and for several years, if you were not under 10:00 in the 2 mile, you were not likely in the top 15 or 20.
I realize the days are long gone of pretty attractive prize money for the River Run which certainly attrached a national class field for that race for a few years.
I guess what I miss most are the days when just a weekend Wichita race meant some fast times at the front of the field. It was a lot of fun watching guys like Gary Gregory, Fred Torneden, Curt Shelman, Mike Schmidt, Tim Gundy, et al at the fronts of races. Those runners then gave way to a wave of former WSU runners - Mornay Annandale, Tjarrt VanNiewenhiezen, Pascal Pau, Trey Harrison, Joe Guitterez. They are several other outstanding distance runners in the Wichita area that I did not list above.
Where have all the elite runners gone? Have the morphed into triathlon/duathlon or are more runners just not competing at a higher level after they finish high school or college? Perhaps that was just a time when we the Wichita running scene was blessed to have some of the fastest runners in this part of the country.
