Butler Wins Stretch Duel In 'Jingle' 10K

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By Matt McFarland

Special to The Washington Post
Monday, December 15, 2008; Page E03

John Butler ran down Ohio Drive yesterday, dueling Bert Rodriguez of Arlington for first place in the Jingle All the Way 10K.

For more than five miles, the pair had traded the lead. Butler would quicken his pace to try to take a decisive lead, but every time he did, Rodriguez closed the gap.

"We were side-by-side the whole way," Butler said.

As Butler ran, another person stuck in his head: Ian Wolfe.

Not far from the 6.2-mile course in West Potomac Park in the District, Wolfe was struck and killed by a Toyota Corolla while biking across Maine Avenue in October.

Both Wolfe and Butler grew up in Mechanicsburg, Pa., and they raced each other in high school. Butler didn't know Wolfe personally, but a close friend of Butler's living in the area did and was shaken by the accident. So Butler planned a trip to Washington during a break from his graduate assistant responsibilities with the Syracuse cross-country team at the semester's close.

"If I was going to take anything away from [Wolfe's death], it was, 'You need to keep the people you care about close to you,' " Butler said.

With 1,200 meters left in the race, Butler tried to break from Rodriguez a final time, and this time he succeeded. "I saw his shadow start to fade," said Butler, 24, who won several Atlantic 10 conference titles while running at La Salle. Butler broke the tape in 31 minutes 4 seconds.

"He just didn't go away. He was resilient," said Rodriguez, 29, who finished second in 31:13, a personal best.

Both times bested the event record set last year by Solomon Haile, the Sherwood High School senior who won the Foot Locker Nationals on Saturday.

Neither runner seemed bothered by temperatures in the 30s. Rodriguez said he prefers the cold, running about 75 miles a week in the winter but about half that during the summer.

Susannah Kvasnicka, 36, of Great Falls was the first female finisher. She completed the down-and-back course in 36:14.

The 10-kilometer race was only Kvasnicka's second outing since having back surgery, which forced her to drop from the Olympic marathon trials. "I'm just taking it one step at a time," she said.

College Park's Caroline White, 23, was second in 36:31.

The 3,488 finishers included Sonny Barber, 67, of Falls Church, who won the men's 65-to-69 age group, finishing in 45:19. Rockville's Alice Franks won the women's 60-to-64 age group in 47:17.