During the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Commander’s Cup Ten-Miler Qualifier event outside Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation’s Festival Tent, 2nd Lt. Casey Trias, of the 1st Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, certainly showed he has potential to represent JBLM at the Army Ten-Miler this October. Trias finished with the fastest time of all 43 runners, 59 minutes and 42 seconds.

“I was playing it safe because I was afraid of going out too hard,” Trias said.

Trias hadn’t done a competitive race since last October when he was part of the JBLM Commander’s Cup Two-Mile Championship. Prior to April 21, Trias only ran a 10-mile course for recreation. Although he is still new to running 10 miles at a time, he said he usually tries to do one longer run every week on Sundays.

Trias hopes to improve his qualifying time in the next two events to solidify his spot on the JBLM Army Ten-Miler team.

Behind Trias was Joe DeFilippo, a second lieutenant with the 9th Finance Management Support Unit, 62nd Medical Brigade. DeFilippo finished with a time of 1:01:37. He ran in the Army Ten-Miler from 2012 to 2014 while attending Virginia Tech University.

Since coming to JBLM as his first duty station, DeFilippo has run in every JBLM race he could while preparing himself for the Ten-Miler qualifiers.

“I wanted to get as close to an hour as I could,” DeFilippo said. “Today was a good, solid run.”

Leah Guerrero, a first lieutenant with Headquarters Support Company, 7th Infantry Division, had the best time among all female runners with 1:07:07. A former member of JBLM’s 2014 team, Guerrero came into qualifying to meet 70 minutes. Instead, she beat her previous personal record of 1:07:23.

“I’m excited to see how much I improve for October,” Guerrero said.

Jessica Knoll, a first lieutenant with Bravo Company, Madigan Army Medical Center, was happy to see the top three female times fall under 70 minutes. She finished second among all females (1:07:41), followed by Spc. Emily Sugimoto (1:08:20) of the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion, 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade.

Knoll recently returned from running in the 2017 Boston Marathon, finishing the event in 3:42:13. Although she logged plenty of miles in the air and on her feet, Knoll said she enjoyed the extra running at JBLM.

“I love the Ten-Miler because I feel fast,” she said. “In a marathon, you have to find your groove. In a Ten-Miler, I can keep pushing. I don’t have to let off the gas.”

In addition to setting a qualifying time for the JBLM Ten-Miler teams, runners also competed for first, second and third-place medals for their respective age groups. Points were totaled for the different units represented for the Commander’s Cup portion of the event.

Madigan took the overall team title with 23 total points, highlighted by David Nee taking first in the 50 and older division. The 16th Combat Aviation Brigade took second overall with a total of 22 team points. 7th Inf. Div. was third with 12 points.

The next JBLM Ten-Miler qualifying event will take place as part of the JBLM Freedom Run event July 22. More information about that event can be found on jblmmwr.com/races. A third qualifying race is also expected to take place in July, although no official date has been set.

By the end of July, JBLM intramural sports coordinator Teresa Hatch said she will have a male and female team selected. This gives both teams a few months to train for the Army Ten-Miler Oct. 8 in Washington, D.C.