Crawford Wins Ambassador 3

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The  3k Ambassador 3 

By Jerry Dietrich
with photos by Bruce Fisher

October 18th – Gig Harbor
The third and final race in the Ambassador series saw 75 year old David Crawford demolish a field of younger runners. The race was restricted to runners in the Silver Strider age group. That group is comprised of any runner over 50 years of age. Crawford broke the course record for Men 75-79 by 2 minutes and 35 seconds. The course record for M75-79, was formerly held by Ed Heckard a fast Super Athlete who set the record earlier this year, while age 79, running the hilly course at 15:27. Crawford’s new record is 12:52.

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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDavid Crawford
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Crawford, who recently turned 75, was a Boomer Champion, a Super Athlete with five rings and currently ranked #1 in the 2025 TOP IO rankings for 3k, 5k, Half Marathon and Marathon. Crawford needs only to do a 10k race to attain #1 there and qualify for his second Gold Super Athlete ring. The gold rings are awarded only those Super Athletes who can gain number #1 ranking in their age group at the four prescribed distances. At this point in the year, it appears that only David Crawford and Judy Fisher will receive Gold Super Athlete rings. Judy finished first Woman in the 80-84 age group in this race.

The first woman finisher was Kimmer Muenz. Kimmer was also the second finisher overall with only David Crawford finishing ahead of her. She also is a Super Athlete with expectations of receiving her 4th Super Athlete ring this year.

Kimmer Muenz

In addition to Crawford’s course record for Men 75-79, four more course records fell.
Finishing 3rd overall, Brent White broke his own Men’s 60-64 course record by 59 seconds at 14:57.
Finishing 4th overall, Kristen Tollefson broke Dana Childs course record by over 15 minutes with a fast 15:24 in the Women’s 55-59 age group.
John Phillips broke his own course record for Men 80-84 by 1 minute and 19 seconds with 17:36.
The fifth course record to fall, was by Jerry Dietrich who broke his own Men’s 90-94 record by 31 seconds with 35:48

xxx Brent White xxxxxx Kristen Tollefson xxx John Phillips xx Jerry Dietrich

The weather was ideal. Rain had previously been predicted starting at 4am, but the prediction changed when the wind died down and the rain arrived at about 2pm.

All of the runners stayed for the awards ceremony. Every finisher received a trophy.
Almost everyone stayed for the drawing and everyone remaining won a drawing prize.

Afterwards, some of the Silver Striders braved the thousands of King protesters that jammed downtown Gig Harbor to meet for lunch at Moctezuma’s Mexican Restaurant.

Photo courtesy of John Phillips

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Karl’s Corner

It was a beautiful day for the last in the series for the Ambassador 3k. The air was crisp with pleasant Fall weather and with anticipation for the start of the race. Old friends and new comers gathered together for one last run of the year on the Cushman Trail. Even the first hill didn’t look as daunting as it once did just a few months prior. (Although, I did change my mind about that 3 minutes later.)

In all, it was a good race followed up by a bountiful drawing for prizes. It looks like most of the age group winners have been decided, with a couple being decided today. Just a couple more that are still in contention.

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Here are the results in photos by Bruce Fisher