Queens Hosts Half Marathon

Julio Chuqui of Richmond Hill put on a surge about 9.5 miles into the 24th annual Queens Half Marathon, conducted by the New York Road Runners Club (NYRRC) and College Point Road Runners Track Club (CPRRTC), and crossed the finish line first in McNeil Park, College Point, last Saturday morning.
For most of the 13.1 mile event, the 31-year-old Chuqui and 33-year-old Doug Cross of Towaco, N.J. ran together, but Chuqui pulled away with fewer than four miles left to win his first Queens half marathon in three attempts.
Lauren Esposito of Manhattan won the womens race in 1:21.34. The CPRRTCs first-place finisher was Yorki Munoz, who finished eleventh overall with a time of 1:14.08.
Chuqui finished the course in 1:09.18, six seconds faster than Cross.
Chuqui, a member of the West Side Runners, ran a 1:08 in the same event last year. In his first such race he was recorded in 1:09.53 in 1999. He recently returned from Equador and trains about 120 miles per week.
Chuqui and Cross finished well ahead of Jaroslaw Lazarowicz of Ridgewood, who finished in 1:10.54. Leonardo Chalco of Flushing and Prisco Huerta of Brooklyn rounded out the top five.
The race was the second of five races in the NYRRCs half-marathon series. There were 3,709 runners altogether, and 2,434 finished the race. "We had the largest turnout ever and the weather was great," race director Leo Nicholas said. "The runners were very patient with everything that went on. Now its on to the Silver Anniversary next year when well do something special."
On hand to commemorate the event were State Senator Frank Padavan, Fred Mazzarello of the College Point Board of Trade, and Marilyn Bitterman of Community Board 7. Skaggs-Walsh fuel company was the major sponsor.