Friday, June 21, 2019

Two West Coast Masters Runners Lost to the Running Community in June 2019


Mark Richtman and Jeff Salzman passed away this month in California. The race may not always be to the swift, but these two swift runners left an indelible mark on the Running Community.

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Mark Richtman, Novato CA    64



Missing and presumed drowned, on a solo kayak trip to Tomales Bay, by the Point Reyes National Seashore, in early June.



Raceography. Primarily an Ultra Runner, Richtman occasionally joined his friend, Brian Pilcher, running for the Tamalpa Runners at the USATF Club XC Championships.



2007 USATF Masters Championship Races [M50+] at Club XC—West Chester OH

#2 runner for Tamalpa--# 15 overall in Team 50+ competition—Team took 2nd place



2008 USATF Masters Championship Races [M50+] at Club XC – Spokane WA

#2 runner for Tamalpa Runners Inc--# 16 Overall in Team 50+ competition—Team took 3rd place



2016 USATF Masters Championship Races [M60+] at Club XC –Tallahassee FL

#2 runner for Tamalpa Runners Inc--#6 0verall in Team 60+ competition (missed the individual podium by 4 seconds)—Team took 2nd place





From the Dipsea Trail Race 2019 Summary:



“Pilcher dedicated his winning effort to Mark Richtman, a fellow elite runner from the Tamalpa Club, who is missing and presumed drown (sic) following a solo kayak trip to Tomales Bay earlier in June. Numerous runners in the field of 1,500 wrote “Run 4 Mark” and “Long Live Mark” to honor the seven-time Dipsea Black Shirt winner.”



Read an appreciation of Mark Richtman at:






Jeff Salzman, Irvine, CA      67



Died of a stroke on June 17, 2019.



Obituary:




Jeff Salzman ran for the Cal Coast Track Club 60+ team, participating in both Cross Country and Road National Championship events. I did not know him, but we had briefly met at least once. In reviewing his races, I see now that we occasionally ran in the same Championship race, and sometimes finished within a half-minute or so of one another.



Raceography. The oldest race listed on Athlinks for Salzman is the 1983 NYC Marathon, when he was 32; he ran 3:00:59. The first USATF national championship race I can find is the 2014 USATF Masters 8K Championship in Brea CA, where he teamed up with Dale Campbell, Bill ‘Coach’ Sumner, and Bert Sandoval to claim 2nd place in the 60+ division for the Cal Coast Track Club. Salzman was 2nd runner for the team in 32:36. At age 64 he ran for Cal Coast ‘B’ in the Club XC Championships in San Francisco, helping Paul Cook, Perry Forrester, and Anthony Reynoso to a 14th place finish out of 36 Teams. In 2016, he teamed up with Sumner, John Combs, Cook, and Charles Sanchez, to take 2nd place M60+ for the Cal Coast ‘B’ squad at the 8K Masters Championships in Brea. A versatile runner in terms of distance, Salzman teamed up with Forrester, John Holcomb, and Keith Witthauer, to take first place, M60+, at the 2016 USATF Masters Half Marathon Championship in San Diego. In October 2017, he ran a 1:09:05 15 K to help Cal Coast, along with Forrester, Holcomb and Sumner, to a 4th place finish in the National Masters 15 Km Championship at Tulsa. A month and a half later, he, Holcomb, Sumner, and Witthauer took 6th out of 14 teams at Club XC. In 2018 he competed for Cal Coast in both the USATF Cross Country Championship in Tallahassee FL and at the Club Cross Country Championship at Spokane WA. Witthauer and he teamed up with Brian Nelson to take 4th at Tallahassee and Salzman jumped in with Combs and Sumner, to help Cal Coast finish 16th at Club XC. That is the final race result listed on his Athlinks profile; it is fitting that it would be for the team he helped to sustain.

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