TC ya later: Bayshore women's winner jets off soon after victory to catch husband's race
May 25—TRAVERSE CITY — Emma Kertesz' stay in Traverse City wasn't long.
Just like her time on the Bayshore Marathon course.
The Toledo native and Boulder, Colorado, resident booked a flight back to Colorado on Saturday evening in order to watch her husband compete in the BolderBoulder 10K on Memorial Day.
"I know my body's not going to be happy getting on the plane," Kertesz joked.
Still, she made the most of her brief stay in TC, taking Saturday's Bayshore Marathon with a time of 2:37:34 that won the women's race and placed ninth out of all 1,301 full marathon finishers.
The 42nd Bayshore anniversary provided Kertesz with a victory in her first attempt.
"I saw that there were direct flights from Denver to Traverse City and so I was like, 'Oh, well,'" Kertesz said. "Back in March, I felt like I was rounding into good shape. I'm looking at spring marathons and I see Bayshore. The weather's usually good, the flat course. I was like, 'I can be competitive there.' And my coach was like, 'All right, let's do it.'"
The 33-year-old preschool administrator had only run in Traverse City once before, competing in the Cherry Festival 15K nearly a decade ago.
It was also only her second race of the season, following a 27:55 at the team-oriented eight-kilometer Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago, racing for Boulder-based The Track Club.
Kertesz said she had the Bayshore record — Hannah Becker's 2:36:57 from last year — in her sights, ending up only 37 seconds off that mark in Saturday's cloudy, humid conditions and low-60s temperatures.
"Better than 80 and sunny, for sure," Kertesz said. "I saw last night it was going to be humid and a little bit of a headwind. You just have to accept it and roll with the punches — because the marathon doesn't owe you anything."
She's never raced in the Boston Marathon, but her time qualifies her for 2025 if she chooses.
"Everyone always says, 'Oh, you have to do Boston. You have to do Boston,'" Kertesz said. "It'd be pretty cool to do that. We'll see where I am in the spring and then go from there. I have teammates who did it this year and were just ranting and raving about how great it is. One day I want to be there and have that feeling."
In the meantime, Kertesz said she'll take some time off from racing and get back into that more in the fall in shorter team events.
"I might wait till the Olympic Trials window opens," Kertesz said. "I'm pretty close to being able to hit that standard — if they don't lower it again — for 2028. That would be my goal. So I'll probably run another marathon when that window opens."
She wins $1,000 as the women's marathon champion, beating out a field of 559 competitors.
Kertesz ran with a pack of five men for much of the race, before they kicked ahead. Eventually, she passed several of them.
"It's super fun, the dynamic of having the marathoners come out, and then you're catching the half marathoners," Kertesz said. "It's really fun. Everyone you run by is like, 'Oh, there's the first woman!' and that's really, really special and a really cool feeling."
Katie Swor of Wyandotte wins $500 for taking second in 2:50:12, with third-place Jessica Rockafellow of Grand Blanc taking home a gift bag for her 2:53:41.
Swor's last full marathon was last December, but the 37-year-old former Western Michigan University rugby player said the weather wasn't as bad as she was expecting.
"I was expecting much warmer and that humidity scared me this morning," Swor said. "I've started to learn with the marathon that you can't control the weather, so you just see what the weather is and adjust your plan. So I went out conservative. It was humid, but it wasn't as bad as it gets, so it was comfortable. The aid stations, everything like that was perfectly staged, so it was good to be able to grab water, dump it on your head."
Swor works for the Detroit Free Press Marathon, so she's running around a lot that race day, but not the way she did Saturday.
She ran the Boston Marathon in 2017 when it was very hot, using her 2016 Bayshore time to qualify.
Since then, she's come to Traverse City several Memorial Day weekends to just watch the marathon or run shorter races.
"I came out last year to spectate, and I was dripping sweat from spectating," Swor said. "So I don't know why that motivated me to come back this year."
Sophia Afridi of Perrysburg, Ohio, won $500 as the female Masters champion. The 40-year-old finished in 2:54:40. Second-place Masters finisher Luciana Bartholomew, 42, wins $250.
Kathryn Fleuhr, 30, repeated as half-marathon champion in 1:16:51 to take home $750. Megan O'Neil of Rochester was runner-up to claim a $375 prize. Katie Singer, 43, of Detroit, won the Masters half-marathon title to win $350, and runner-up Heidi Kerst, 58, of Ann Arbor, takes home $175.
New this year to the Bayshore is a cash prize for the 10K champions. Erika Fluehr, 30, repeated as the 10K champ, pocketing $500, while Allison Lunau, 29, of Troy, was second to earn $250.
Follow @Jamescook14 on Twitter.
