When the Keys Weekly caught up with, unbeknownst to us at the time, the 2023 Seven Mile Bridge Run champion Vance Bursa and asked how he did after the race, his answer was pretty common:
“I beat the bus!”
The part he left out? “…And the other 1,499 people on that bridge.”
As evidenced by significantly slower average times than in recent years, a stiff headwind and high morning temps challenged hundreds of runners in the race’s 42nd iteration, won by Bursa with a time of 41:01 – that’s a 6:02 mile pace. The 15-year-old MHS distance phenom said he and returning 2022 champ Collin Wainwright paced each other for most of the race, chasing a pack of frontrunners led by eventual second-place winner Joanna Stephens.
“When we got off the hump, I thought it was probably time to go catch (Stephens),” he said. “I said, ‘Collin, you wanna go?’ … He didn’t pick it up enough to where we could catch her by the end of the race, so I just said ‘I guess I have to take off.’ So I did.”
Bursa’s win resumes a proud recent run of victories by Marathon locals, with his cross country contemporaries Aydan Child and Jonathan Pitchford winning the race in 2018 and 2019, respectively. He was quick to acknowledge strong finishes by his current teammates and family – his brothers Jakub, 18, and Tony, 13, took eighth and ninth place overall, respectively, while his mother Helena braved the course with a broken wrist and still claimed the top spot in her age division.
With two more years before graduation, the Weekly only had one other question that we knew Vance would never come out and say on his own: If he can fend off strong runs from his own family, does he have his sights set on a repeat championship?
“That’s the plan,” he laughed.
“We are relieved and happy that the 42nd annual 7 Mile Bridge Run is now in the books,” said race director Ginger Sayer. “We are so appreciative of all of our volunteers, law enforcement officers, and our local fire personnel. It seemed as though the runners had a good time and were kept safe, and we are now looking forward to the 43rd annual, which we hope to gain approval for, on April 13, 2024.”
