Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K : Mexico’s Cruz Shows Off Talent in Finishing First Among 14,000

It was a run in the sun for most everybody else, but for winner Alejandro Cruz of Mexico, Sunday’s Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K was another race to showcase his developing skills.

Cruz, unknown internationally until he won last fall’s Chicago Marathon in 2 hours 8 minutes 57 seconds, ran a canny race Sunday in sunny and cool conditions.

Cruz led almost from the start, running just ahead of Steve Cram of England, the world-record holder in the mile, and Thom Hunt of San Diego.

Hunt and Cruz left the pack at about 3 miles and left Cram to battle Matt Ebiner of West Covina for third place.

In the hilly second half of the course, Cruz, 20, wore down Hunt with a series of surges. In the last mile, Cruz attacked the final hill and pulled away from Hunt for good.

Cruz, seventh in the 1988 Los Angeles Marathon, is a university student in Mexico City who trains at Boulder, Colo.

Cruz’ winning time was 29:20, Hunt was second in 29:23, Ebiner was third in 29:42 and Cram, who almost lost a shoe early in the race, was fourth in 29:51.

“I had to stop and tie my laces at 2 miles,” Cram said. “That was it. End of race. You can’t catch up against these guys. It’s a basic error. That’s the first thing you learn. It’s the first time in my career this has happened. But I had fun. I like these kind of races.”

It was nothing more than a training run for Cram, and something of an exercise in anonymity. The three-time Olympian went largely unrecognized at the race, which was the 11th annual bash for 14,000 entrants.

Sylvia Mosqueda of East L.A. was the women’s winner in 32:48.

The real stars of this race, though, are the wacky runners who run dressed in all manner of garb. There was the predictable: Young men wearing football uniforms, complete with helmets and pads. The football players carried--and passed--a football the entire 6.2 miles.

There were the odd: Five men inside a cardboard bus (mounted on their shoulders), wearing wigs and singing the theme song to TV’s “Partridge Family.” Singing badly.

There were the irreverent: At least two groups lampooning Florence Griffith Joyner, the fashionable winner of three gold medals at the Seoul Olympics.

A group of women in the 6-pack division wore long black wigs, taped-on 4-inch-long fingernails, false eyelashes and, of course, Joyner’s trademark one-legger--in this incarnation, the women wore a flesh-colored tight on one leg and a lacy white tight on the other.

There was also Slo-Jo. A middle-aged woman wearing a flannel shirt with one sleeve cut off. She ran wearing a sign that read, “No speed. No fingernails. No chance.”