GRAND ISLAND, April 20 - Among the many excellent performances at Saturday's Half Marathon was the record breaking run of Orchard Park's Susan Munson. Susan won the womens overall title, and claimed the course record for female masters. She traversed the USATF certified course, in perfect weather conditions, in 1:24:32. The old record, 1:27:57, was set by Leslie Jones in 1998. Susan's performance placed her 23rd overall among 340 hardy finishers.

The overall winner was Kevin Beatty of Waterloo Ontario. Beatty was clocked in 1:08:18 - just 5 seconds off the mens course record. Beatty was followed by Rick Streeter (1:11:32) and Mike Heitzenrater (1:11:57). The steadily improving Heitzenrater shaved an astounding 3 full minutes off his 3rd place finish of a year ago.

David O'Keeffe jumped into the race at the last minute and claimed 1st place among all male masters runners in 1:12:31 - good for 5th place overall. O'Keeffe is the mens masters course record holder at 1:09:36 which he established in 1999.

Congratulations to all the runners who tackled the Half Marathon Saturday on Grand Island.

Complete results are available in the RESULTS section.

Photographs are available at Buffalo Photo CD