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WORLD RECORD HOLDER: John Cramer FOUR OF HIS TIMES ARE LISTED AS WORLD RECORDS BY SETH ROBERTS John Cramer, whom you might know from the Como Park Relays, set many indoor and outdoor American and World records on the track between 1973 and 1976. According to the Association of Road Racing Statistics (www.arrs.net), four of his times are listed as World Records. On January 7, 1973, Cramer set records for 10 miles (52:38), the one hour run (18.342 kilometers) and 20 kilometers (65:30) in the same race on a track in Chicago. On January 24, 1976, in an indoor race at Mankato State in Mankato, Minnesota, Cramer set a world record for 25 kilometers (1:26:09). He also set an American record for 15 miles (1:23:07), but that record has been broken. Cramer, who was born in 1951, attended North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, in 1972 and 1973. He transferred to Mankato State in 1973 and graduated in 1975. He had begun chasing records after reading Runner’s World’s listing of records for indoor and outdoor distances while in college. After college Cramer moved to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he taught at an American school. He trained with the Honduras National team. He logged 5,000 miles in a year which paid off with the fastest half marathon of his career in 65:20. This time earned him a seventh place finish at the Max Tott race in Guatemala City. When he returned from Honduras in 1976, he went back to Mankato in
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John cramer in 1970.
MARCH/APRIL 2016
