Elmhurst's Kern Has Sweet Homecoming in Buffalo

Maters runner and coach extraordinaire Charlie Kern went back to his hometown of Buffalo last Friday (July 15) and came back to Elmhurst with the masters championship at the Subaru 4 Mile Chase, an extremely competitive race loaded with Ethiopians and Kenyans. Kern, 41, told me he keyed off of Canadian master Steve Boyd through the first 1.5 miles and then started moving up. He came up on Kenyans Joseph Ekuom (New Paltz, NY) and Gideon Mutisva (Eufaula, AL) late and took down both of them in the late stages of the race. As it turns out, both of the Kenyans that Charlie passed were masters runners, so it was quite a finish for Kern, a nine-time state champion at Sweet Home High School in the Buffalo area. Kern was first masters finisher, placing 12th overall, in 20:35. Ekuom was next (13th) in 20:25, followed by Mutisva (14th) in 20:42 and Boyd (15th) from Kingston, ON, in 20:45. That was quite a quartet of masters that finished well up the ladder in a world-class field that had 1,011 finishers in all. Hats off to Charlie for another job well-done.