by Mark McDermott and Kevin Cody
Abby Hong, 29, of Manhattan Beach placed first for the third year in a row in the 48th Annual Manhattan Beach 10K on Saturday, October 4. Hong finished 10th overall, in a time of 34:52, four seconds behind her winning time last year.
Miles Jones, 22, of Half Moon Bay, won the men’s division in 32:04, less than 3 minutes behind the course record of 29:20, set last year by Auturs Medtveds, 22, of Latvia.
Two other repeat winners in their divisions were Richard Maynard, 90, and Brenda Haky, 86, both of Manhattan Beach. Maynard finished in 1:36, or 15:36 per mile. Haky finished in 2:06, or 20:19 per mile, which is about the pace most people walk at. Maynard was accompanied by his son, Scott, 50. Haky was accompanied by her daughter, Jill, 57.
Over 4,400 runners signed up for the sold out race and 3,638 finished. The race starts each year at Third Street and Valley Drive, meanders through downtown Manhattan Beach, and then follows Valley Drive to Bell Drive (“Heart attack hill),” and on to Rosecrans Avenue. The final mile is along The Strand to the Manhattan Pier.
But while all the runners run the same course, the MB 10k has countless races within the race, and not just by age bracket. For many, the MB 10k is the race of a lifetime, not in the glorifying sense of an Olympian race, but in the granular way it helps shape lives.
Take Hong. Her family moved to Manhattan Beach when she was in middle school. Even though nobody in the family was a runner, when Hong was in 7th grade all the Hongs ran the MB10k — Hong, her parents, and her twin brothers. It was the first race Hong ever ran and she loved it so much it changed the trajectory of her life. Hong became a star runner at Mira Costa High School, where she found a mentor in Coach Renee William Smith. She then ran for the University of Pennsylvania and won the Ivy League conference title in the 3000 meter race as a senior. Hong moved back to California for a job in San Francisco in 2018, and came back to her hometown race and won it for the first time that year. During the pandemic, she moved back to Manhattan Beach, but took a break from running. She began running again in 2023, and won that year’s race, then again in 2024.
Running the MB 10K, Hong said, is always different, yet somehow always the same. It becomes a way to mark time in life.
“It always means a lot to me,” she said. “It’s always sort of fun to run on the same streets that you run pretty much every day, and running back and forth on the Greenbelt, and on The Strand in high school, and now coming back as an adult and doing the same. It’s the same, but different, right? “You’re seeing things from a different perspective in life, but still running the same streets. And it’s great that the race doesn’t change. You see a lot of the same people out there year after year. Like looking back at the results, even from way before I was in high school, you see a lot of the same folks still running the course.”
The hometown nature of the race has its perks, as well, like how during the final mile of the race, spectators recognizing Hong — she wore the vaunted “1” jersey due to her past successes — shouted out to let her know how far back her competition was.
“It was a pretty fast year,” she said. “So I think people started telling me, going up Rosecrans or down The Strand, that there were other girls not too far behind me. It gives you that little extra bit of motivation as the race gets harder and you are nearing the end. It’s fun to see it get more competitive. It makes it a little bit harder to win every year, but I like the challenge.”
Russ Lesser, who co-founded the race with his wife Charlotte in 1978, said there are other helpful features for hometown runners coming down the final stretch.
“You come down the Strand, they’ve got signs posted, ‘One Mile to Shellback,’ ‘Half Mile to Shellback,’” Lesser said, referring to the iconic, old school tavern located just above the pier finish line.
The Lessers are among the 27 runners who are part of the proud “PIER” group, which stands for Participated In Every Race. While some of those runners are now walkers, others are still running competitively. As one 76-year-old first-time race entrant remarked after finishing, “Great people, great organization. But a lot of fast old people.”
Lesser agreed. “I’m half that,” he said. “I used to be old and fast. Now I’m just old.”
The winner of the men’s 75-79 age group, 78-year-old Torrance resident Steve Notaro, registered a time of 54:50, averaging 8:49 per mile. The winner of the men’s 70-74 age group, 70-year-old Manhattan Beach resident Charles Kaminski, ran the race in 46:55, averaging 7:32 per mile.
The race’s oldest division winner, 90-year-old Manhattan Beach resident Richard Maynard, finished in a respectable 1 hour and 38 minutes. Maynard has been running the MB 10k since its first year. He missed a few years due to the busyness of life, but has run in almost every race. It all began because he had four sons and through them got involved as a volunteer in the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts.
“Running down on the beach was the thing that kept me in shape so I could keep up with the Scouts,” he said. “That’s how they kept me going. And then I just started getting in the habit of running every once in a while down on the beach.”
When the first MB 10k took place, it started near Maynard’s house, so he figured he may as well run. Then, year after year, it became part of his calendar. As he got older, he started winning his age divisions. By now, his beach runs are in part just to stay in shape to run the next 10k. It’s become a multi-generational family affair. This year he had three grandchildren running in the race.
“It’s just a great run,” Maynard said. “A great lot of people there, all running. It’s a happy group. And it’s a great time afterwards. It’s a great time to get together with people. Our whole family gets together for that weekend, whenever my boys are able to get here with their families, so it’s family time for us, also.”
Maynard thinks his running has helped his overall health greatly as he has grown older. He takes a beach run first thing most mornings, often taking a frisbee along to play catch with himself as he runs.
“It’s pretty well known now that you need exercises, and this happens to be something I can continue to do,” he said. “But I watch myself and my body and make sure it says, ‘Okay, you are ready to run.’ Because there are times I’m not going to run. If I have a knee or leg or hip problem, I’m just going to take it easy. But I was able to run this year, so I’m thankful for that.”
What did it feel like to cross the finish line this year? “I made it!” Maynard said. “I’ve done my duty for the day.”
The race’s oldest woman division winner, 86-year-old Manhattan Beach resident Brenda Haky, finished in 2:08. She’s won her age group several times.
“I was the same age as them, but actively, I was probably a little bit more aggressive,” she said.
Haky was a PE teacher at El Camino College and other schools, and suspects that is a key to her success. “That’s just part of what I do,” she said.
Her biggest surprise wasn’t winning, but what was included in the winner’s spoils — not only a tee shirt and certificate, but a $25 gift card for the Shellback. Her daughters were surprised, too. They thought it’d be a gift card for the Village Runner or something like that. Instead, Haky took a friend (and caregiver) out for lunch at the Shellback earlier this week. Her friend had a nice meal, and Haky celebrated with a nice drink.
“I was shocked that it was just this barely even a two room place,” she said. “And this bar is so famous!”
Charlotte Lesser, who is 82, was happy that Haky had graduated to the next age class this year.
“Because competing against her was awful,” Lesser said. “See, I am in the 80 to 84 age group, so she’s gone up into the next age group and I don’t have to worry about her. She actually runs!”
Maybe the most focused rivalry within the race was between two 81-year-old friends, training partners, and rivals, Bruce Timmer and John Mack. They’ve lost track of how many years they’ve competed against one another, but they almost always finish first and second in their age group. Timmer won their age group this year, running a fraction of a second over 1 hour. Mack was second, 8 minutes behind his friend.
“I’ve got him two or three times, and he’s got me two or three times,” Timmer said. “So I am on top right now, and that’s all that matters.”
“It’s his year to crow,” Mack said. “So I get to do it next year.”
Timmer became a runner almost by accident. He was a dedicated beach volleyball player and started running to improve his game.
“I was approaching 40,” he said. “I was playing beach volleyball and we played on Second Street. We have a workup court, and then we have a winners court. I’d win on the workup court, and then I’d play a couple of games on the winners court, and then I’d lose because I was getting tired. So I thought, ‘Well, I better get in better shape so I can keep playing volleyball.’”
Soon enough he was running more than he was playing volleyball. “Then the running interfered with the volleyball,” Timmer said.
He wasn’t hopeful about his chances against Mack this year. Mack and his wife had recently moved back to South Carolina, where he is originally from. But because he wanted to keep his PIER status alive, he and his wife did a long, slow cross-country road trip that ended in Manhattan Beach long enough before the race to train with Timmer. They ran a few times at the Mira Costa track and Timmer did his own runs on the Strand. His friend had a better idea.
“He’s saying, ‘You’ve got to run on the chips on the Green Belt. It’s a lot harder,” Timmer recalled. “And so this year we did some of our training runs on the Green Belt …That first time I did it, I about died because it was a hot day and it was a little faster pace than I had been doing. I thought, ‘Oh, my god, he’s going to take me this year for sure. I better step it up here.’ So, it motivates you when your friend kind of looks like he’s doing better than you. I think we help each other.”
Mack said that their rivalry has certainly helped him.
“Bruce inspires me, through the power of friendship and competition, to live an active lifestyle so that I can compete with him every year,” he said. “He and I run other races during the year just to stay in shape for the October race.
I believe that to have the physical and mental fortitude to train for and complete a 10k and to do it with a friend is really great fun. As the saying goes, you are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C S Lewis, I think.”
Mack has been running all his life. He grew up in the country in Carolina and played a lot of sports growing up, then went to Navy Aviation Officer Training School. “It’s run by Marines,” Mack said. “A Marine drill sergeant is a great teacher.”
He’s been running ever since. The MB 10k only solidified his running routines, and now, as he grows older, it gives him a focal point for training.
“I think Russ Lesser deserves a lot of credit,” Mack said. “He keeps the fire lit on 27 of us [in the PIER group] to continue getting exercise and being able to walk or run.”
All of the older runners credit the race and the running habit it inspires as a key to aging healthier and happier. A study conducted by Brigham Young University released this year found running can lead to a nine-year biological aging advantage by maintaining telomeres, which are protective caps on DNA that shorten with age — in other words, runners tend to be nine years younger than their biological age, relative to non-running peers.
“I think it’s good for you mentally, too,” Timmer said. “I think it stimulates your brain to exercise, and so I try to do something every day. I bike and I walk or I run, and in the summertime, we go down the beach and a group of us go body surfing.”
Charlotte Lesser said the MB 10K keeps a lot of people running.
“A lot of people who are older, because it’s sort of a tradition, actually train enough to be able to go and finish the race, whether it’s running, run-walking, or walking,” she said. “I see a lot of people in the 70 to 80 age range who go out there every year, year in and year out.”
“And they stay in shape all year so they can do it, which is a great thing for your health,” Russ Lesser said.
Michael Weisberg, MB 10k race director, said that 8 percent of this year’s runners were over age 65, and 28 percent are over 50.
“We are fortunate in that the race draws a lot of people who have been doing this race for many, many years, and they take their race very seriously,” he said. “I do think it encourages people to train year round, in part because the South Bay has a great running community, with great, different areas to run, whether you are running in the hills of PV or on The Strand or the Greenbelt. Living in the South Bay encourages you to want to be fit, and you have running clubs like Club Ed, a group of people who have been running together and they’re all competitive and train really hard together.”
“At the end of the day, it’s a community race,” Weisberg said. “We love our faster runners, but this race is built around the average runner, or walker, because 35 to 40 percent of the field are walkers. People just love it, because our race is about encouraging fitness.”
When the Lessers launched the MB 10k 48 years ago, they could not have fathomed that nearly a half century later the race would have grown into what it has become, and that it would have such a broad and positive impact on the entire community. Charlotte said that at the finish line of this year’s race, they got a reminder.
“A really nice thing happened at the finish,” she said. “The son of one of the oldest competitors years ago, who has passed away, was waiting for us. His name was Jack Tsu. Jack’s son waited at the finish line and gave Russ one of Jack’s medals that he got in this race, and gave me a picture of me with Jack’s wife. So I see how much it means. I think he was darn near 100 when his family pushed him along the race the last time.”
Jack Tsu started running later in life to combat deteriorating health and ended up participating in the race over 30 times and winning his age division a record 15 times in a row. His last race was completed in a wheelchair, with a big smile. It was, as it always had been, the race of a lifetime.
“It’s been a fun experience,” Russ Lesser said. “Obviously, we’re kind of proud of it.” ER
