Pictured above are Fillmore High School graduates and FHS runners, the Chavez brothers. Pictured are (l-r) John Chavez, Vincent Chavez, and Anthony Chavez, who competed in the Ventura Marathon and the Half-Marathon this past weekend. Photos courtesy of the participants.

Pictured above (l-r) are Fillmore Alumni Valentin Gonzalez, Martin Arredondo, and Eddie Farfan who participated in the Ventura Marathon and the Half-Marathon. Photos courtesy of the participants.

Article by Epi Torres

On Sunday, February 25th, while most of us were still wrapped up in our warm blankets, several Fillmore athletes took up the challenge and ran the Ventura Marathon and the Half-Marathon. This article started out as a piece on three athletes, but as I discovered, many other Fillmore athletes ran as well.

Martin Arredondo and Eddie Farfan both ran the marathon, a distance of 26.2 miles, and Anthony Chavez ran the half marathon. The races are mostly downhill with a few risers. This type of course appears to be easy, but the down hills chop up your quads and most of us know what the up hills do to us. The race started at 6:30 a.m. in Ojai and followed the bike path into Ventura.

This is Martin’s running history prior to Sunday’s run: Martin ran the Ventura Marathon in 2022 in 3 hours 34 minutes. In 2023, he also ran the Ventura Marathon in 3 hours 12 minutes. In 2023, he also ran the Camarillo Marathon in 3 hours 14 minutes. On Sunday, Martin ran his personal best time of 2 hours, 58 minutes. This is Boston Qualifier for Boston 2025.

This is Eddie’s prior to Sunday: Eddie ran the Camarillo Marathon in 2018 posting a time of 3 hours 39 minutes. In 2022, he ran a Boston Qualifier in the Ventura Marathon with a time of 3 hours 11 minutes. In 2023, he ran the Boston Marathon in 3 hours 6 minutes. On Sunday Eddie ran a 2-hour 58 minute, a personal record at the Ventura Marathon. This is a Boston Qualifier for Boston 2025. Eddie currently resides in Bakersfield. He has also run several Ultras: in 2017, he ran the Ray Miller 50 miler in 11 hours 19 minutes; in 2020 the Zion 100 Kilometer in 16 hours 26 minutes; and in 2021 the Bryce Canyon 100 miler. Wow, quite a list!

Other marathoners from Fillmore also ran and posted times; they were Eric Magana in 4 hours 23 minutes, Jacqueline Reynoso in 4 hours 35 minutes, and Marissa Lopez in 5 hours 16 minutes.

The Chavez brothers, John Chavez, Vincent Chavez, and Anthony Chavez ran the Ventura Half-Marathon on Sunday morning. Top finisher for the trio was John Chavez, who posted a time of 2 hours 19 minutes, followed by Vincent Chavez in 2 hours 33 minutes, and Anthony Chavez in 3 hours 27 minutes.

Other runners from Fillmore in the Half Marathon were Francisco Bernardino in 1 hour 41 minutes, Julio Chavez in 1 hour 57 minutes, Diane Munoz in 2 hours 45 minutes, Samantha Loza in 2 hours 47 minutes, and Jacqueline Chavez in 2 hours 50 minutes.

Well, let me say, I started to write this article about Martin Arredondo, Eddie Farfan, and Anthony Chavez. In the end I discovered many more Fillmore runners. I was unable to do a rewrite, so I’m going with this one. Finding more participants was great. I was overwhelmed by the number of participants and the number of miles covered.

Congratulations to all those who took up the challenge. You make us proud, and you represented our community well. Run on!