Patrick Reusse: Ribbons bind hearts, minds of top runners

Camaraderie was strong as runners honored a fallen peer at a conference cross-country meet.

By Patrick Reusse, Star Tribune

Last update: October 11, 2007 - 10:19 PM

Mike Lhotka had spent two hours at Collinwood Regional Park on Wednesday, checking the course over which the Wright County Conference cross-country meet would be run a day later. The main task was to use orange spray paint to mark any rocks, roots or holes in the ground that could cause an unwary runner to take a fall.

"This is a different kind of course -- very scenic," Glencoe-Silver Lake's Kenny Fillbrandt said. "Trouble is, you have to spend all your time looking down for orange paint. It must take 20 cans of spray paint to mark all of the rocks."

Lhotka coaches cross-country at Dassel-Cokato, the host school for Thursday afternoon's nine-team meet.

He already was hustling around the start-finish area at 3 p.m., an hour before the first of four races (junior high, girls varsity, boys varsity, junior varsity) was scheduled to start.

The rival teams and their coaches started to arrive. Lhotka would offer a greeting and then hand the coach a plastic bag containing purple ribbons.

"We want to wear these today in honor of Caty," he would say.

Caty Delwiche was an outstanding runner for Glencoe-Silver Lake. She was all-conference in cross-country starting as a seventh-grader. She was the conference's individual champion in 2005 and 2006.

She graduated last spring as a straight-A student and was recruited to Minnesota State Mankato for cross-country. She was on a training run last week when a driver mysteriously careened across two lanes of traffic. She died at the scene.

For the most part, cross-country competitors are more friends than rivals. You can see an individual winner waiting around to cheer someone trailing at the back of the pack.

Melissa Janning, a running machine from Watertown-Mayer and still only an eighth-grader, said that bond isn't always there if you're a very young runner competing in varsity.

"When you're a seventh- or eighth-grader, running varsity, some people give you that look that says, 'What are you doing here?' " Janning said. "Caty was just the opposite. She would come over and start talking to you. We became good friends.

"We talked on the phone, exchanged e-mails and text messages. My sister goes to Mankato. I was going for a visit and we were going to take some runs together.

"I was numb for a week when I heard about Caty."

On Thursday, Janning cruised to victory ahead of a pack of Mound-Westonka runners. The boys' event followed, and Fillbrandt, a solidly built senior, ran away from Annandale sophomore Connor Gjeure to win.

Caty's brother, Stephen, a ninth-grader, finished eighth. He called it the "best race of his life," not by time but considering the difficulty of this course.

Fillbrandt and Caty Delwiche were very close friends. He was her date for the prom last spring. "I knew she would be getting a lot of offers, so I struck early," he said. "I was probably the first guy in the school to ask a girl to the prom."

Jeff Delwiche, Caty's father, said his daughter was impressed both with Fillbrandt's early move and with his creativity.

"We came home from a trip to the [Wisconsin] Dells, and there was a banner across the garage from Kenny, asking Caty, 'Will you go to the prom with me?' " he said.

Delwiche teaches sciences at Norwood-Young America. He has been very close to the Glencoe-Silver Lake cross-country program, and remains so.

"Jeff came to our practice with Stephen the day after Caty died," coach Scott Eckhoff said. "We all went on a run together. We stopped at the flower shop in town. Then, we ran over to the Delwiche house, and everyone on the team gave a flower to Michelle [Caty's mother]."

Jeff was at Thursday's meet. He offered congratulations to a dozen or more runners from various schools after the girls' and the boys' races.

There was one robust hug, though, and that was for his son Stephen.

"He lost a sister, but he also lost his best friend," Jeff said. "Caty and Stephen were very close."

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. preusse@startribune.com