Thousands of runners enjoyed cool temperatures and sunshine for Sunday's MVP Healthcare Rochester Marathon. They also had a new course to deal with.
The marathon took a new route this year; the course was changed to include more city neighborhoods and part of Irondequoit, instead of running through some Eastern towns and that long stretch along the Erie Canal.
J-Mac, Jason McElwain, the former Greece Athena basketball star who now does a lot of running, ran the half-marathon, as did the majority of runners on Sunday. He generally liked the new route, but told WXXI News it wasn't easy.
"I like that part of the scenery, actually having to turn instead of sitting on the canal for 12 miles, so overall it was a pretty good course."
Kip Tisia, a Kenyan native now living in Rochester who is a well-known local runner, won this marathon is just over 2 hours and 33 minutes.
In 2nd place, Kenny Goodfellow, who is an RIT graduate student in Optics. He makes sure to find time to run on a regular basis.
"It’s a big stress reliever for me. Research and school work definitely takes a lot of time but I need to run to do something other than be in lab all day."
The top women's finisher was Katie Mutter, who finished the race in about 3:03. Overall, more than 3200 runners took part in Sunday's event.
