Gonzalez Has the Kick for Half-Marathon Victory

Oscar Gonzalez refused to get caught up in a game of follow the leader during Saturday’s Southern California Half Marathon. He knew Danny Reed wasn’t the type of runner to come back to the pack, and he sensed those around him were in no mood to match Reed’s fast early pace.

So Gonzalez separated himself from the others and caught Reed, then said goodbye in the last mile, winning the race in 1 hour 6 minutes 5 seconds.

“I broke off from the lead group early because I noticed that they were not going to make it,” Gonzalez said. “So I made my move, I stayed behind him, when he slowed down I tried to keep the pace up.”

Gonzalez, a 32-year-old native of Venezuela who trains in Los Angeles, matched Reed’s five-minute-per-mile pace until the final 300 meters, then distanced himself with a kick that placed him five seconds ahead of Reed.

Reed, who moved to Laguna Niguel from Riverside last August, welcomed Gonzalez’s company early on but was not able to stay with him in the end.

“I looked back and said, “ ‘Yeah, good, somebody to run with,’ ” Reed said. “But at about 10 miles I was actually getting pretty tired. Then I was kind of like, ‘OK, three more miles, just got to hang on.’ As we came around the corner I was beat. It was like, ‘I just want to finish now.’ ”

Reed was all smiles afterward. He finished third in the 5K at the same event last year and was using this race as a tune-up for a full marathon.

The first women to finish the half marathon was Valerie Vaughan of Costa Mesa, who was clocked at 1:17:06. It was the first time Vaughan had raced at that distance.

Vaughan, who flew in from her native Ireland the day before the race, trailed second-place finisher Ludmila Ilina (1:18.48) of Albuquerque during the first half of the race before surging ahead and winning easily.

“It was an 11-hour flight from London so my legs were pretty cramped up last night,” Vaughan said. “But I just decided to come out and do it anyway.”

In the 5K, Ruth Wysocki of Canyon Lake set a course record, winning in 16:22 and bettering the mark Vaughan held by 14 seconds. Last summer, Wysocki, 40, set a world masters elite division record in the 8K at the Bastille Day event in Newport Beach.

First place overall in the 5K race went to Wilhelm Gidabuday, a 22-year-old from Newport Beach who finished in 14:24, nearly a minute better than the second-place finisher.