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GASPARILLA DISTANCE CLASSIC

Paine, Mackley Take 5k Titles

By BILL WARD The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 18, 2007

TAMPA - Since graduating from college, Amy Paine has tried being a casual runner, one of those folks who are content to be fit and rarely lured into a road race.

But each time she pins on a race number, those competitive juices start flowing and Paine finds herself wanting to win. And that's exactly what she did in Saturday's 5-kilometer race at the Bank of America Gasparilla Distance Classic.

Serious about her running again and showing impressive fitness from her training with the Florida State women's track team, the 26-year-old Paine blasted to a 5k personal-best of 17 minutes, 30 seconds to capture her first Gasparilla title.

"I keep feeling like I'm not done yet," said Paine, who ran for Division III Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. "I feel like God gives everyone different gifts and I'm using the one with the shortest shelf life first."

Paine took Saturday's race by 50 seconds against two-time winner Brigithe Moreno of Plant, who was last season's state cross country champion in Class 3A. After spending a year training with the Nike Farm Team, Paine recently joined the staff of Florida State track and cross country coach Bob Braman as a volunteer assistant in hopes of resuming hard training again. To pay the bills, she teaches fifth and sixth grades at a small Christian school in Tallahassee.

Braman, a former coach at USF and a 1976 graduate of Chamberlain High, believes Paine has a shot at achieving the U.S. Olympic trials qualifying standard in the 1,500-meter run of about 4 minutes, 15 seconds. At Rhodes, Paine was a runner-up in the 1,500 nationals. She ran her high school track in Moultrie, Ga.

"She doesn't have a lot of experience but she has a lot of upside and she's made a lot of progress," Braman said. "I think she liked the way we have our training organized and the type of person she is and how hard she works just makes her a great role model for our team."

The men's winner, 19-year-old Scott Mackley, was part of the contingent of Florida Southern College runners that performed so well in the 15k. Mackley, a state 1,600-meter champ his senior year at Lakeland Kathleen High, was competing in his second Gasparilla 5k. But his winning time Saturday - 14:57 - crushed his previous time here of 16:03 and eclipsed his personal best by seven seconds.

Mackley, a sophomore at FSC, said he was pleased to post the sub-15 clocking because it had not been done in seven years at Gasparilla. And he wants to be part of a resurgence of distance running in the area.

"Everybody's talking about how running around here is getting slower and slower," Mackley said. "I was reading on the [flrunners.com] forum yesterday that some kid said '15:30 will win Gasparilla's 5k, no doubt.' I said, 'We'll see about that. We'll see.'"

Reporter Bill Ward can be reached at wward@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7456.