Thursday, February 19, 2009

CLUB CHALLENGE

The day you've all been anticipating for 362 days is almost upon us! And while Justin has been getting ready by watching Daddy I'm a Porn Star Now (starring Skyy Cherry), I've been preparing fastitidiously, compiling and analyzing data that will help me predict whether we've got a shot at winning this thing. As you are all aware, this is the most important thing in my world right now (why? Because it's a team thing, that's why) and while I understand not everyone views it the same way as I do, all I ask is for a solid effort.

See also: Beat as many people as you can from other teams.

As you're all aware, the scoring is cross country style (i.e. your place is the number of points you earn, lowest score wins) and 12 dudes and 4 chicks score per team. After that, runners act as displacers, meaning that even if you aren't one of the 12/4, you still can help by pushing competitors back to higher positions.

Last year, Howard County put in 12 guys under 58:05. I was 5th for Falls Road at 59:25. I hope this year is somewhat different. If you're capable of running under 58 - do it! If you're capable of running 58-60, do it! If we have people scoring over 60 minutes we will not win. On the girls side, between 64 and 68/69 is usually going to be the scorers. It would be totally awesome to sweep this, and I know we can based on our arsenal.

IMPORTANT Information!

The race starts at 8am sharp on Sunday morning. This is a fairly early race for the winter, and anticipate it being cold. This means come prepared. Bring clothes to warmup in, an appropriate race outfit (temps are typically between 28 and 32 at race start, may warm up to high 30s by the end - so a shirt under a singlet is fine, and you should be cool with shorts), and bring warm/dry clothes for after the race.

Carpooling - since there are so many of us racing it would be virtually impossible for me to organize this, and none of you would listen to it anyway cause you all seem to have random things you have to do before and after. So if you want to carpool, ask around, you can even leave it in comments. Geographically makes sense; for instance I will be driving a little Canton crew (and my car appears filled). Fed Hill you guys are on your own. Maybe you Mt. Vern/North Balt people can work something out. I know Ben is going to have to get there super early so he can run 17 miles beforehand, so I imagine he'll have to get out there on his own.

Directions/Time - It takes 25ish minutes to get there, but give yourselves extra time. Also don't get pulled over like Arjun did last year. The race start is at the Howard County Community College, which you can look up for directions from where you live. If the race starts at 8, and you want to be near the start 10 minutes early, just work backwards. 15 minute warmup, a few minutes to get your number, release some hostages, whatever. I'd suggest being there by 7:15 at the latest.

I'm really excited about this race this year, and remember we are representing Falls Road while we're out there, in a competition against other local clubs. Let's get psyched, and no excuses after the race! If you aren't happy with your race, just say something like "I'm optimistic about things to come" - let's keep the negativity to a minimum, it brings everyone down. Yes, it's early and cold, and a challenging race and we've all run faster in our lives, but it's for fun!

Oh, and if for some reason the race should get canceled due to inclement weather, I'll make the phone calls in the morning and get the word out.

Stepping off my soapbox, looking forward to seeing all of you on Sunday!

I'm a doctor, it's okay

3 comments:

RM said...

Also!

If you don't want to be misled by the incorrect mile markers that are out there, don't wear a watch! Just run off of effort.

Ben said...

so, i have a slight change of plans. I've felt like crap the last 36 hours and i really want to beat HoCo - so, I'm cutting my pre-race run in half. I'll be driving - leaving from Mt Vernon at 6:15-6:30am. If anyone needs a ride let me know.

RM said...

NEWS UPDATE:

Two more pivotal members of HoCo have signed up - Doug Mock and Dave Berardi. Doug recently ran 27:17 at the USATF XC Masters 8k and is a former course record holder at Shamrock 5k at like 14:45 or something. And of course Berardi was 28:38 at the xc meet. I still have us with a slight edge right now, but a lot of that is on non-tested performances of a few members. HoCo races pretty predictably - i.e. they don't have bad races but don't race out of their minds, either.

Gonna be a battle@