All Sarna Becker wanted to do was de-stress.
Whether that meant going for a brisk run or just plain getting out of the house, it really didn’t matter to her.
The 33-year-old Bremerton resident got the best of both worlds Saturday at the 38th annual Sound to Narrows. Becker won the 12-kilometer race through Point Defiance Park and the streets of north Tacoma with a time of 45 minutes, 30 seconds.
“I’ve been really stressed because we’re thinking of moving and our house is on the market, so I haven’t been training as much as I would like to,” said the mother of three young boys. “It’s just been really busy, so I said to my husband, ‘I just need to go out and clear my head for a day and just go run a race.’ ”
A three-time winner of the race from 2006-08, the former Bellarmine Prep and Stanford track and cross country standout didn’t compete last year. But Becker (formerly Sarna Renfro) picked up right where she left off.
“I didn’t wear a watch … my strategy was just to de-stress,” she said. “All I had to do was run. It was the greatest thing.”
Ruth Perkins (46:45) of Puyallup finished second, and last year’s winner, Kristi Houk of Port Orchard, was third (47:25). Redmond’s Shelly Hack (49:33), Tumwater’s Sara Crookshank (49.58) and former Bellarmine Prep star Nicole Cochran (50:24) rounded out the top six.
Becker jumped out to an early lead, but the group of favorites remained close midway through the course.
“Kristi was beside me, so I was just going to stick with her,” said Perkins, who won the Tacoma City Marathon’s half-marathon in May. “She was trying to catch Sarna so I went with her. (Then) Kristi kind of fell back and so I was just trying to catch Sarna the whole time.”
Houk, who ran in the Fremont 5K on Friday in Seattle, couldn’t finish the push to get to the front. Perkins did her best, but as Becker entered Point Defiance Park, she accelerated to pull away.
“When we first started going into the park I was shortening the gap on Sarna, but then probably at about Mile 5 Sarna just took off like she had a fire under her,” Perkins said.
Despite coming up short, Perkins set a personal best on the course by nearly three minutes.
“I ran a hard workout on Thursday and I was using this as a workout,” said the 29-year-old mother of two who works part-time as a personal trainer at the Mel Korum YMCA in Puyallup. “My new goal is to try and qualify for the Olympic Trials for the marathon. These smaller races are helping me work on getting there.”
Becker has been hard to beat in her five appearances in the race in the city where she went to high school, winning four times. She had similar success in college while running for Stanford, where she earned All-America seven times, twice placing fifth in the 5,000-meter in the NCAA championships.
“I love this course. I love hills, I love running through Point Defiance,” Becker said. “Tacoma always brings back great memories because I went to high school here. I was just having fun.”
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