Photo: Cheryl Jamerino (no. 3294), Grosse Pointe Woods and Christine Hafner (no. 1016), Farmington Hills are among Santa's reindeer competing at the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot.

DETROIT (11/25/04) -- The Hansons-Brooks running teams overcame brutal head winds for three miles on Woodward Avenue in front of a Thanksgiving Day Parade crowd to dominate the 22nd annual Fifth Third Bank Turkey Trot 10K.

Some may have inadvertently enhanced their times by following a lead vehicle which cut the course short a block. Still, no one threatened the Rochester Hills-based team.

Clint Verran won his fourth Turkey Trot in 10 tries, pulling away with 600 yards to go to finish in 29 minutes, 56 seconds, good for a four-second margin over teammate Trent Briney.

The Hansons runners, based in Rochester Hills, took seven of the top 10 spots for the men and four of the top five spots for the women. Carly Graytock, who set a personal best of 35:41 in defeating teammate Jackie Rzepecki by 57 seconds, led from start to finish to take the women's race.

It was a painful victory for Graytock, who was near tears inside Cobo Center, a few yards from the finish line. Despite wearing gloves during the race, her hands were red and swollen and she shivered uncontrollably.

"My hands started hurting at the one-mile mark," said Graytock, who ran for Bucknell University. "The wind was nasty. It just blew right through my gloves. I tried tucking behind some guys, but there weren't that many of them out there running my pace."

The men's race was a tight, three-way competition. From the mile marker on, Hansons' Marty Rosendahl ran with teammates Briney and Verran, who were fourth and fifth, respectively, at last winter's U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Rosendahl, who finished third in 30:04, did much of the leading, with Briney throwing in periodic surges to try to break things up.

While they might be teammates, "you gotta try to compete when you're out there," Briney said.

"They know this is my home turf, and I bring out an entourage," said Verran, who went to Eastern Michigan and Wayne State.

Briney surged with a mile to go, and made another surge with a half- mile to go.

"He was throwing daggers with those surges," Verran said.

Laura Murphy of Rochester, a former Turkey Trot champion, finished third for the Hansons team and won the master's (over-40) title in 37:05, defeating Linda Ewing of Grosse Pointe by more than six minutes. Murphy's husband, Mark Neal, also won the men's master's, finishing in 35:04, 74 seconds ahead of John Springer of South Lyon.

The race drew a record field of 5,800, including 900 who signed up on race day despite the weather. Although the rain, sleet and snow that hit Metro Detroit overnight had stopped by race time, the wind chill was close to zero.

The wind was so strong that the men's leaders ran their first mile in 5:05. Their fourth mile, with the wind at their back, was run in 4:17.

This year's Turkey Trot was the first that wasn't put on by the Motor City Striders, who have cut down their race schedule in their last year of sponsoring races.

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