March 4, 2004 – Billy Bohlke, a top middle-distance runner at his alma mater Louisiana State University, is now three-for-three as a long distance runner for the V.I. National Team and the top long-distance runner in the Virgin Islands.
In November he ran his first race longer than 10 kilometers, the V.I. Half-Marathon on St. Thomas, and finished first in a modest 1 hour 19 minutes. He next won the Bridge-to-Bridge 15k in Pensacola, Fla., in February in 48 minutes 6 seconds. And on Saturday he entered his first marathon, the annual Blue Angel Marathon in Pensacola, and won it, in 2 hours and 32 minutes.
Bohlke is in the Air Force National Guard, training to become a pilot; he took advantage of the opportunity to up his training miles and run the marathon while in great physical shape. He ran the first 10 miles of the half-marathon with Matt Dobson, a runner he raced against in the Bridge-to-Bridge/ Before they went separate ways, each vowed to win their race as they headed down the road.
Basically self-coached, a release said, Bohlke has represented the Virgin Islands in two Central America and Caribbean Cross-Country Championships (Bermuda 2002 and Acapulco 2003) and the World Cross-Country Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2003 and other regional championships. Last year he trained at high altitude in Mexico City.
For details of his earlier life on St. Croix, where he attended St. Croix Country Day School through the 7th grade, see the Source People feature, Bohlke runs, flies, graduates – all with honors. For earlier running — and winning — in the Virgin Islands, see the Source Sports section.
Bohlke will run in the World Cross-Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium next week.
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