Steve Crane of Silver Spring, MD and Caroline White of College Park, MD were the top male and female finishers in the 2nd annual Battle of the Boulevard 10K in Arlington. Crane won for the second consecutive year and established a new course record of 31:45 which eclipsed the 32:09 he ran in 2007. White's winning women's time of 37:49 was also a course record, bettering the 37:58 that was run by 2007 champ Jackie Gruendel.

In the masters division, 47 year old Doug Kuderna of Odenton, MD was the top male finisher in 36:08 and 51 year old Ofelia Perotti of Alexandria, VA captured the women's title in 41:47.

The Battle of the Boulevard is one of the more challenging 10K courses in the DC area and features a steep drop down Wilson Boulevard from Clarendon to Rosslyn, a short relatively flat stretch out Route 110 to a turnaround point near the Pentagon, and then a return trip with an unforgiving 2 mile climb back up Wilson Boulevard to the finish line in front of Pacers Running Stores in Clarendon. Bert Rodriguez led the early charge down Wilson Boulevard before being overtaken after the 5K mark by Crane. Crane and Pacers teammate Rodriguez passed through the turnaround point at 5K in 15:14, with Wardian and Bart Borghuis about 10 seconds behind. Similar to his tactics from a year ago, Crane pulled away late in the race to win by a comfortable margin. Borghuis, a newcomer to the local racing scene who recently moved here from Philadelphia, made a strong move to overtake Rodriguez on the Wilson Boulevard hill and cruised home in 32:15 to grab second behind Crane. Rodriguez held on for third place in 32:27 ahead of Michael Wardian's fourth place finish in 32:41.

The women's race was a two runner battle from the start with Caroline White sharing the pacesetting duties with Pacers teammate Erin Swain. The pair ran stride for stride for the first 4 miles of the race, passing through the 5K mark in 18:19. White proved to be the stronger climber on the hills late in the race as she steadily pulled away to a 34 second victory ahead of Swain's 38:23 effort. Megan Sowa of Arlington rounded out the women's top 3 with her 40:02. This was the first victory on the local road racing circuit for the 22 year old White, who only took up running last summer after her graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy, but has quickly developed into one of the top distance runners in the DC area.

The race, organized by Pacers Running Stores, had almost 1,500 finishers in the 10K and 200 more in the accompanying 2K fun run/walk. The beneficiaries of the race were the National Kidney Foundation and the Arlington YMCA.

See full results of the 10K race.