Ashley Ledet of Prairieville didn’t win Saturday’s Crescent City Classic.
In fact, she was nowhere close to being first.
But of the 13,000 or so runners in the race, nobody got a better prize than Ledet did as soon as she and Toby Sandifer crossed the finish line.
Sandifer dropped to one knee, not from the exhaustion of running the 10K race but because of the love that was started six years ago.
He pulled out a diamond ring and popped the question to Ledet and she said “yes.”
This was Sandifer’s fifth Crescent City Classic, but it was the first time he had run it with his girlfriend.
“This is something she doesn’t normally do,” Sandifer said. “She did it. She completed it and did it for me. So I said ‘You know what? This is my woman. I’m keeping her forever and ever.’ My strategy was that she would be too tired and delirious to say ‘no.’ I think it worked. ”
It’s a day the two of them will never forget.
The day will be just as unforgettable for many of the other 13,000 or so participants in the historic race that takes place in the streets of New Orleans every Easter weekend.
Kolyn Saltzman was the male winner and Kir Selert Faraud was the female winner, giving the race a rare double dose of local winners. Perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a surprise since the race suspended its elite runners program this year as a cost-cutting measure after the race went through some lean years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s why the theme of this year’s Crescent City Classic, “A Race for All Y’all”, seemed so fitting. This one was indeed for everybody, as you could tell if you stood by the finish line. Everybody was a winner, including the race itself which withstood the threats of Mother nature. The rain that had been in the forecast for days never came.
“Being from Louisiana, I was hoping the weather was going to be like this,” said Saltzman, who finished in a time of 31:23. “High 60s. Humid as hell. We had a tiny bit of mist. Perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
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