Jamaican Andrae Drummonds overcame cramps and then cruised to a win while Lighthouse Point's Marlene Persson continued her domination in the women's field at the Publix Tropical 5K Saturday morning on Miami Beach.
The 7th annual race drew a record 2,500 runners, and served as a warm-up event for tomorrow's ING Miami Marathon and Half Marathon.
Drummonds, 25, was never seriously challenged as he crossed the finish line in 16:07, ahead of Henrique Artico, 16:22, who will be running in the half-marathon on Sunday. Gerard Pearlberg, 48, was third in 17:15.
Persson, 41, the 2010 champion and runner-up last year, finished in 18:41 with early race leader Casey Crist clocking in at 19:12. Finishing third in 21:17 was Ingrid Zelaya, a 20-year-old exercise science major at Florida Atlantic University who was also using the race as a warm-up for her first half-marathon tomorrow.
The 5K did not start out as planned for Drummonds, who is training to run the 1,500 in next year's World Championships.
"I took off at the beginning, but I didn't really want to lead the race," he said. "Then between the one and two mile marks my side started cramping. I was grabbing my side because the pain was strong. I almost stopped but I thought 'let me keep on and see how it feels.'"
Artico, a Brazilian who won three races in Las Vegas over the last month, was thinking only of saving his legs for Sunday's Half Marathon. But he was surprised as he found himself out front with Drummonds.
"When I saw I had a chance to win, I began to race seriously," said the 20-year-old. "I left a little distance but I was holding back. But at the end I saw that I wouldn't catch him (Drummonds) so I held back the rest of the way."
Despite her success, Persson said she did not have a plan for the race.
"I had no strategy," she explained with a smile. "I'm too old for strategy. I just go out there and run."
"I started out a little faster than I'm used to and I felt it later," said the 21-year-old Crist, a graduate student on the University of Miami's track and fie.ld team who bettered her third-place finish last year. "I went out in about 5:45, 5:50 and I couldn't hold the pace."
Persson passed Crist at the two-mile mark and took the lead for good. "I started gaining and passing her," said the physical therapy technician. "I continued and I felt like she was falling back. I didn't look back, but I've been running for so long and you just know."
It was a balmy 68 degrees when the point-to-point race got underway just after sunrise east of Watson Island. The runners crossed the McArthur Causeway, passed a half dozen gleaming cruise ships that were docked at the Port of Miami, and headed south to the finish line at the southern tip of Miami Beach, near Joe's Stone Crab restaurant.
Race organizers saw the Publix Tropical 5K field soar nearly 20 percent from a year ago.
"We didn't want to expand beyond our means," said US Road Sports and Entertainment Group General Manager David Scott. "As we were at the (Publix Tropical 5K) starting line this morning we were thinking 'We're only 800 runners shy of the Miami Marathon's numbers 10 years ago.' And that is amazing."
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