Seven present or former Pennsylvania College of Technology cross-country runners participated in the 26.2-mile Harrisburg Marathon Sunday and two Tamara Pavlov of Lewisburg and Jeff Faherty of High Point, N.J. ran fast enough to qualify for next April's 113th Boston Marathon.
Faherty, a junior landscape/nursery technology major, finished 26th overall among men runners in 3 hours, 58 seconds and won the 20- to 24-year-old age group. A year ago at Harrisburg, Faherty also qualified for Boston, while winning the age 19-under men's division in 3:07.46. A 3:10:59 is needed to qualify for Boston.
Pavlov, a sophomore business management major, finished 134th overall in 3:31 and was second in the 20-to-24-year-old age group. She needed a 3:40:59 to qualify for her first Boston race.
"Jeff repeated, but Tamara was a surprise," said Penn College coach Mike Paulhamus.
"They've been training, but they weren't allowed to do any marathon training during the cross-country season," he continued. "We worked some workouts in to help them out and they did their Sunday runs on their own. They dedicated themselves as a group to do this and I was proud they took the challenge and worked together on their own. It's a good experience for them and I'm really proud of them."
Also running at Harrisburg, but not hitting the Boston qualifying times, were Seth Beckman (Linden), 101st and second in the 19-under group in 3:25.0; alum Mike Womelsdorf (Allentown), 138th overall and ninth in the 20-24 division in 3:32.0; Mike Fischer (Ringwood, N.J.), 212th overall and fifth in the 19-under division in 3:46.0; Russell Blankenship (New Florence, Va.), 307th overall and 16th in the 20-24 division in 3:58.0; and alum Tracey Brewbaker (Middletown), 694th overall and 12th in the 20-24 age group in 5:30.0. In all, 769 runners finished.