(October 13, 2006) — The Rochester area's most popular 5K road race, in its 11th year now, will feature at least two former college Division I running stars but mourns the absence of one its most popular champions.

Connecticut native Hunter Spencer, who won last year's Run For Hospice 5K, and newcomer Dylan Wykes of Kingston, Ontario, will lead a contingent of several post-collegians intent on breaking the men's course record of 14 minutes, 8 seconds when the race goes off at 9 a.m. Saturday.

It will earn them an extra $500, on top of the $1,000 first-place cash prize.

Women's defending champion Emilie Mondor, who ran this area's first sub-16-minute 5K at the Greece race a year ago, died in a late-afternoon automobile accident east of Ottawa a month ago, when the car she was driving overturned and ejected her.

"She had committed to coming back and was really excited about it," said race director Pete Van Peursem of Ogden. "I had already booked her airline tickets and had her hotel reservation ready. It was just an awful shock when I found out. Everybody loved her."

Mondor, 25, was the first Canadian runner to accomplish a sub-15-minute 5,000 meters and was 17th in the 5,000 at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

"She really, really loved to run, purely for running," said three-time Olympic middle-distance runner Leah Pells on Mondor's Web site www.emiliemondor.com. "You could just feel that in (her) workouts. There's not a lot of athletes out there that absolutely love just the motion of running. She was just glad to be there, glad to be running, glad to be part of the sport."

Mondor had just finished her longest run — a 29K training session along the Ottawa River as her coach bicycled alongside — preparing to make her marathon debut in New York City next month.

"I'll never forget," Van Peursem said, "at the awards ceremony when I gave her flowers for winning the race, she immediately turned and presented them to one of the girls in the wheelchair race. She touched so many people in such a short time she was here. We'll observe a moment of silence in her memory."

Spencer, who is a University of Kentucky graduate and runs with the Indiana Invaders, and Wykes have good shots at the course record. Spencer just ran his first sub-four-minute mile, a ninth-place 3:59.2 at the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York Sept. 30, and Wykes because he was 11th overall and eighth American in 14:16 at the U.S. road racing 5K championship in Providence, R.I., on Sept. 6.

"I'm looking forward to the competition in Rochester," Spencer said. "I'm pretty fit right now and I'm not hurt."

After last year's Hospice race he struggled with a pulled hamstring and Achilles injuries through the winter and spring.

Wykes, a 23-year-old graduate of Providence College where he became an All-American in cross country his junior year, is making his first Rochester visit at the request of his coach, masters runner Steve Boyd of Kingston, Ontario.

"He'll definitely have a go at the record," Boyd said. "He ran a 14:15 on the roads last weekend, and it was a course that is much more difficult than Hospice." Boyd, who was first master (40 and older) and fourth overall last year at Hospice, has run the race three times.

Though former champion and 2005 runner-up Mark Andrews of Canisteo is nursing a foot injury, other area runners expected to contend in the top 10 are Jeff Beck of Perinton and former SUNY Geneseo teammate Ted Turner, who will return with Hunter and their Invaders teammates.

Former SUNY Cortland All-American and Syracuse native Michelle LaFleur of Savannah, Ga., is a favorite in the women's race, with Christa Downey Meyer and Runner of the Year points leader Sarah Nazarian-O'Connor among the top local entries.

JCASTOR@DemocratandChronicle.com

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