On a beautiful spring morning that seemed designed for running, more than 320 people finished the Viking Half Marathon and 5K on Saturday, but nobody did it like the flying Frenchman Duncan Perrillat-Amede.
The 25-year-old from Grenoble, France, via Chicago outclassed the competition, finishing the 13.1-mile course in 1 hour, 14 minutes, 31.46 seconds, a pace of 5:41 per mile. That’s nowhere near world-class speed but in this race, Perrillat-Amede beat the next runner, Ty Wamsley of Vicksburg, by about 16.5 minutes. With Wamsley running at a 7:01 pace, he was about 2.5 miles behind Perrillat-Amede at the end.
That means Perrillat-Amede could have had at least two plates of catfish, hush puppies and French fries from Larry’s Fish House before the next runner completed the course.
The young man with the rough beard and ponytail, wearing the Liking My Viking T-shirt, had the lead from the first stride at 8 a.m. in front of the Leflore County Courthouse, and he never gave it up.
Perrillat-Amede works for The Middleby Corp. in suburban Chicago, owners of Viking Range, where he designs and builds showrooms. He learned about the race at work.
To verify his Frenchness, when his name was announced as the winner and he was presented with the first-place painting, Perrillat-Amede leaned forward for the cheek and cheek kiss, a tradition for sports champions, only to get a hug in return from the young Delta woman presenting the award.
Perrillat-Amede only recently moved to Chicago from France, arriving in the middle of winter, which sounds like a bad idea until you consider he left winter in the French Alps. He’s looking forward to running along the lakefront this summer.
Because of his recent relocation, he admitted he hadn’t run much in the past three months or so, but had “walked a lot.” He started running last week when he decided to take the City of New Orleans train to Greenwood for the race.
To make the rest of the half marathon runners question themselves even more, Perrillat-Amede has never run a half marathon before, or a marathon. He said he used to run in 3k races, less than 2 miles, and was a miler with a running club at one point.
His Linkedin profile shows he ran as a member of the cross-country and track teams when he attended California Baptist University, a Division II school in Riverside, California, from 2015 to 2017. Perrillat-Amede was the Pac-West champ in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 2016 and 2017. Earlier than that he came in 14th in the Junior French International cross-country trial in 2012.
So, while he's never run a half marathon before, he has run before. And while he made it look easy, it wasn't.
“It was hard,” Perrillat-Amede said. “I think I can do better.” He said he was running out of steam in the last couple of miles and his legs began feeling heavy.
“If I can stay in America, I will come back next year,” he said. Perhaps Greenwood can fish around at the local colleges to see if it can come up with some competition for him.
The Greenwood race has apparently become a favorite with out-of-towners, although Perrillat-Amed is certainly the first Frenchman to win the race in its eight-year history. Of the five top finishers in the half marathon for both men and women, none of them are from Greenwood, or the Delta for that matter.
Complete results are available online here: vikinghalfmarathon.racesonline.com/results.
• Contact Gavin Maliska at 581-7235 or gmaliska@gwcommonwealth.com.
