Hayes and Strickler Win 2024 Shoe House Shuffle

By mitchpa on July 10, 2024 • ( 0 )

By Clay Shaw

July 4, 2024, York, PA—Joanna Hayes of Dillsburg, the 2021 Baltimore Marathon winner, had to find her way around the 5-mile course, and she did it winning in 33:27. The weird thing is the two guys who had a lead bike and ran 28:18 and 28:28 respectively, were out of Joanna’s sight for the second half of the race, as they were five minutes ahead. Young Lyla Eltz of Hanover was with Hayes for the first few miles, before the marathoner pulled away, finishing completely alone.

Austin Strickler of York, wearing a Central HS XC shirt and Peyton Small of Littlestown dominated the front running, distancing the field by over five minutes until Hayes came in as women’s champion and third overall. Question, where are the 20-, 30-, and 40-year-old males?

Tim Strickler of York was third male in 33:45, he’s 55 and was top master. Andrew Cooper of Hanover was fourth in 34:40, and Leo Miller of Dover, age 54 was fifth in 34:41.

Kelly Rose of Dover was second female in 34:44; the training she did on the California Coast paid off. It was fun talking to Kelly about her time in Pacifica, CA where my mom lived, about 15 miles south of San Francisco.

Lyla Eltz, age 13 was third in 35:30. Jennifer Smelko of Wrightsville was fourth in 36:00. Hayley Green of York, who just graduated from Central H, was fifth in 36:16. She was proudly wearing her “Ship” hat, as she will be running for Steve Spence at Shippensburg University later this year. The first master was Patricia Bender of Lancaster in 36:54; she was seventh overall.

214 runners finished the 5 miler. The 4^th of July Shoe House Shuffle is in it’s second year as a new event, not to be confused with various other Shoe House races of past years.

Of note were the incredible running of two 70-year-old York women, who could be nationally ranked. Billie Kay Melanson, 70, ran 44:31 after a big goof at the start. Margaret Moore, 72, ran 45:46. Billie shared the information that in age-graded stats, Margaret would have scored the highest in the 214-runner field.

Kudos to Heather Roe and the York Road Runners Club and volunteers for staging this soon-to-be July 4th tradition. Special thanks to Blaze Fogle for his awesome version of our national anthem.

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