July 30, 2014
Fullerton wins 5K crown
Haverhill native wins Yankee Homecoming race for second year in a row
Sports Reporter
The Daily News of Newburyport
Wed Jul 30, 2014, 10:04 AM EDT
NEWBURYPORT — Pat Fullerton ran away with the Lions Club Yankee Homecoming 5K crown last evening, winning his second consecutive title with an official time of 15:04. The Haverhill native, who runs for New Balance and manages the Newburyport Greater Boston Running Company, beat out his training partner Eric McDonald — who manages the Andover Greater Boston Running Company — by 15 seconds.
Fullerton ran 21 seconds faster than last year’s race, which he won despite suffering a hamstring injury after a quick start.
“Last year I went out crazy fast, tweaked my hamstring, so I really had to shut it down the last two miles,” Fullerton said. “This was just a much more conservative race at the start, and I made a move at two miles or a little before two miles and separated and it felt good.”
Though repeating as champion is a nice feeling, Fulleron gave kudos to McDonald for keeping it competitive for the majority of the race.
“It feels good — we had a really good group this year. I couldn’t mess around like I did last year. I had a good race and it felt really, really good,” he said afterward.
“Me and Eric train together a lot. We worked together for about the first mile and a half, and then I just kind of made a little bit of a move, a big surge, and felt it going up Oakland [Street]. But I knew if I made separation no one was going to catch me, so I was able to kind of relax it in and get ready for Sunday in the High Street Mile.”
Fullerton, 25, who formerly ran at Stonehill College and Haverhill High School, also won the High Street Mile last year, setting the course record at 3:58.8.
On the women’s side, newcomer Beverly Antunes impressively took home her first Yankee Homecoming 5K title with an official time of 18:29.
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