Fisher Hooks Marathon Title In Debut Race

Mike Fisher, on his way to winning the men’s first place in the Dunkin’ Donuts Cape Cod Marathon on Sunday, makes his way down Surf Drive. Fisher ran a fast time of 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 11 seconds to capture the win in the first marathon he had ever run in. PETER COOK/ENTERPRISE

FALMOUTH- Mike Fisher of Brookline had never ran a full marathon before. Repeating his initial results are certainly going to be tough for the 24-year-old former Newton South and Boston University track star.
Fisher made a very impressive marathon debut as he grabbed the men’s championship in the Cape Cod Marathon on Sunday morning, running a time of two hours, 33 minutes, and 12 seconds to top a field of 1,270 marathoners and 200 relay teams. Heidi Westerling, 27, of Acworth, NH, continued her four-year winning streak, with her first-place finish in the women’s race with a time of 2:50:45.
Fisher believed that he had a chance to do very well at the CCM, but winning the race wasn’t his ultimate goal before the day began. What he really wanted to do was run a qualifying time that would allow him to participate in the Boston Marathon in April.
Not only will Fisher be running in Boston, but he’ll probably be taking off with the elite pack after his showing in Falmouth. “I feel great, the feeling was priceless, knowing I have the ability to run by myself for Boston. I knew I had to be conservative in the first half of the race to have energy for the hills. I figured I would be in a pack, but no one was around me, so I took off. At mile 15 my legs tightened up, so I backed off with my pace. The last five miles, I just had to hold on, so no one would catch me.”
Fisher said that he knew that the title was his to win pretty early on. “After about five miles the (closest competitor) was about 200 meters back, and after that I didn’t see him again,” the champion, who ran 5K and 10K races at BU, said.
Bryan Kovalsky, of Peekskill, NY, who finished second, said that he knew right away that he was not running for first place. He would finish in second in 2:38:56.
“For the first five miles, maybe (I thought I could win). I wanted to run my own race and right away I made the decision that if he was able to do that at the beginning, then he was just better than me today,” Kovalsky said. “There wasn’t a point really in going with him, but I really died...I was struggling the last 10 miles. There was no way that I could have beaten him.”
Kovalsky said that, like Fisher, most of his running on the day was done alone. Late in the race, when the more-rested relay teams were on the course, he got a scare from one runner as he thought that he might have fallen into third place. “A lot of people were yelling at me to get out of the way, and I didn’t know what was going on. And then, at (mile) 21, a guy just blew past me and I was cursing to myself, I just got outsmarted, but he was in the relay. When I heard him, my heart skipped a beat, but then when he was a few steps ahead, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m in the relay.’ I felt a lot better. It’s never good to get passed at 22 miles,” the high school English teacher said.
Peter Richter, of Norwell, was third. He ran 2:43:01.

Heidi Westerling captured her fourth straight women’s CCM title on Sunday morning. PETER COOK/ENTERPRISE

Westerling has been the female runner to beat on Cape Cod for years and she continued her dominant run by winning the CCM for the fourth consecutive year. She had a commanding five-minute lead over the women’s second-place finisher, Mary-Lynn Currier, of Canton, CT.
Despite having a dominant lead the whole way, Westerling, who trains by running 150 miles per week, said that she was not going to take anything for granted and did not think the race was hers until she saw the finish line workers raise the tape for her to break. “I was nervous the whole time I was running. You never know what can happen when you’re running. Anything can happen, you can pull a muscle, you can get a cramp, so you just keep trying to think positive the whole way through,” she said. “I didn’t know (I would win) until I came around the corner (onto Main Street). A marathon is just so long, and you never know...if you think you’re winning and then you get passed, that’s a real blow.”
She then nonchalantly strode through the finish line without even raising her hands in victory.
“My coaches always said that (that kind of celebrating) is for the world class, the real top ones, and not until you’re running a sub-five minute pace,” she said.
Westerling seemed content to add to her resume despite a busy schedule. The fifth-grade teacher said that she and her fiancé are building a home right now and also preparing for a summer wedding, on top of her world class training routine, which she sticks with each and every day. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life right now,” she said. “Squeezing all that in has been tough.”

Mike Norton, of East Falmouth, takes the relay handoff during Sunday’s race from one of his teammates. PETER COOK/ENTERPRISE

In the marathon relay, a local man had a big hand in the championship for the team New England Running All-Stars, based out of Walpole, which won for the second straight year. The team, comprising Jimmy Fallon of Walpole; Mark Reeder of Brighton; John Noland of Kingston; Mike Norton of East Falmouth, and Tom Foltz of Stowe, VT, combined to take first place overall. Fallon and Reeder defended their title, bringing in a couple of fresh faces, including Norton, to replace injured runners who couldn’t help in the title defense.
Norton, who is a project manager at Lawrence-Lynch, ran the leg of the race that took him through Sippewissett, an area he said he’s very familiar with. He said that that familiarity helped. “I train those roads all the time,” he said. “I like the rolling hills. I feel privileged. It’s an all-star team, and I feel honored to be a part of the team.”