Kevin Smith and Kelsey Ryan Earn Top Honors in The 2022 Buffalo Runner Of The Year Series!By JEFF JOHN, on behalf of the Buffalo Runner of the Year CommitteeBUFFALO (January 20, 2023) - The first post-pandemic Buffalo Runner of the Year Series for local road racers has entered the Buffalo area running archives. New Runner of the Year champs were crowned in Buffalo's revived annual epic multi-race series. The men were led by Orchard Park resident Kevin Smith. Smith easily outpaced all his rivals with 69 hard-earned Series points. Runner-up was Luke Rogers with 35 points. Rogers was followed by Alex Hillyard with 28 points. In the women's competition, Buffalo resident Kelsey Ryan was way out in front of all women with 53 earned points. Ryan was followed by Mary Giza and Janelle Kaczor with 27 and 20 points respectively. These stellar local athletes will be honored in a brief ceremony at the annual BuffaloRunners Century Awards event sometime in February. Also to be honored are 30 Runner of the Year Age Group winners. We'll have more on these topics in a few days... The Buffalo Runner of the Year Series is a grand-prix style race series where all participants of selected road races are eligible to compete for points. The 2022 competition was comprised of 12 of the region's finest local road races. The Series will begin anew for 2023 season earlier than ever before and there will be a couple of new races in the mix. Stay tuned for more info on that! The complete 2022 Buffalo Runner Of The Year Series results can be found here: http://buffalorunners.com/ROY_2022.asp |
Kevin Smith leading the 2022 Bunny Hop. Kevin won the 5K race in a time of 0:16:46. DIANE SARDES photo |
Kelsey Ryan en-route to her win at the 2022 GBTC Grand Island Half Marathon. Kelsey's winning finish time was 1:24:37. DIANE SARDES Photo |