Damaris Chewon Makes History with Title in the Half Marathon, T-Birds Place 3rd

NMJC distance runner Damaris Chewon won the 2023 NJCAA Women's Half Marathon individual title with a time of 1:21:08.30 on Tuesday, Nov. 14. Chewon is the first NMJC women's cross country athlete to win the half marathon individual title.

"Tuesday was a great day for our program," NMJC cross country head coach Jeff Becker said. "We'd never had an individual champion in the half marathon. We ended up actually having two with Tomas winning for the men and Damaris winning on the women's side." 

The T-Birds parlayed Chewon's victory into a third-place team finish at the NJCAA Women's Half Marathon Championships.

"Damaris pulled away probably earlier than I thought she would," Becker said. "I knew she had a good chance at performing well, but there were a lot of good runners in there, including the two that had beat her in cross country on Saturday."

Chewon finished runner-up at the 2022 half marathon in Tallahassee, Fla. The Tuesday morning win was a perfect send-off for the December graduate.

"Damaris excels at the longer distances, and she went out and really showed that in the race," Becker said. "She easily outdistanced those runners that got first and second in the cross country championships. Her win was a great way to end her T-Bird career on a very strong note and make history by winning the individual championship for us on the women's side."

The T-Birds finished with a team score of 38 points, which was three points in front of the fourth-place finisher Trinidad State. Salt Lake took home the women's title with 18 points and Iowa Western finished runner-up with 32 points.

Vanessa Gallegos was the second runner across the line for the T-Birds. The Lovington, NM native placed 19th overall with a time of 1:31:01.80. The finish earned Gallegos USTFCCCA All-American honors. The half marathon was the longest distance Gallegos has ever run with 11 miles being the most she had previously attempted.

Morgan Waltmire was the key third runner to finish for the T-Birds. Waltmire finished in 22nd place with a time of 1:32:53.40. The half marathon only factors in three runners to the team score. Waltmire outran a few runners in the final 1k to help guide the T-Birds to a third-place finish. Waltmire, like Gallegos, had never run the 13.1 miles prior to the race.

"I always try to be positive on our chances of bringing home a trophy, but I thought it was kind of a long shot," Becker said. "Damaris took care of business up front and then if you look at the split scores, Morgan and Vanessa, who were our other scorers in the half marathon, did exactly what I asked them to do for us to finish third."

The 13.1 mile race is not for the faint of heart especially if you've never attempted to run the distance like Vanessa Gallegos, Morgan Waltmire, and Lisanne Schapendonk

"Vanessa and Morgan started out nice and slow and nice and easy," Becker said. "If you look at it, we were in fifth place at the first checkpoint and those two were way back. Then, as you watch the different split marks, we just kept on getting closer and closer. We got into third and even closed in on second by the time we came to the finish."

Lisanne Schapendonk was the fourth and final runner for the T-Birds. Schapendonk, who was unsure if she would run a day before, placed 32nd with a time of 1:36:28.30.

"Lisanne was a question mark whether we would even run her when I knew we had the others out with injuries the day before I asked if she would jump in there for us," Becker said. "You never know with having to score three runners anything could happen. She stepped up for us and agreed to run with what I believe her longest run being just over seven miles this year."

The women's team was hampered with lingering issues from the cross country season that Coach Becker was not willing to chance his luck with this arduous of a race.

"We are really middle distance strong on the women's side," Becker said. "We had a couple of our other long distance runners that finished the cross country race and had some problems with some injury issues. I thought if we got the small injury and we try to race 13.1 miles it could knock us out for a couple months, which could ruin the track season for them. So, I decided to rest some runners."

"Overall, I was extremely pleased with how the ladies finished given the circumstances," Becker said. 

The T-Birds close the 2023 cross country season with a runner-up in the NJCAA DI Women's Cross Country Championships and a third-place finish at the NJCAA Women's Half Marathon.