Newcomer Wins Women’s Cow Harbor 10K by 1.5 Seconds

Less than two seconds separated the first and second place female finishers in the 36th annual Cow Harbor 10K Run in Northport Village Saturday.

Mattie Suver, a newcomer to the Cow Harbor race, took first place with a finishing time of 33 minutes and 31 seconds. She surpassed Amy Van Alstine in the very last seconds of the race. 

At the beginning of the run, Suver was toward the back of her pack, but by the last downhill stretch, she took to the front and was neck in neck with the Alstine at the end of Main Street.

“I was just telling myself to push all the way through that line because I’ve been passed at the line before and its kind of disappointing so I just made sure I ran through that finish line,” she said.

Suver, 27, came from Colorado Springs, Colo., and said that she had only expected to place in the top five.

“I knew it was going to be tough, but I gave it everything I had,” she said.

While, the race isn’t one of the longest courses Suver has completed, it is one of the more difficult ones because of Northport’s hilly terrain.

“My legs were shot. They were pretty much dead and I was just hoping I wasn’t going to fall over,” she said laughing. “I just kept telling myself to keep pushing until I couldn’t push anymore.”

On the men’s side, Fernando Cabada took the first-place title from Mo Trafeh, who won the race four years in a row and currently holds the course record. He finished in 29 minutes and 32 seconds.