Poppin' Tags

That's how fresh we are, we poppin' tags like every day of the year...

(But first...special note: Registration for Annapolis 10 Miler opens TODAY. If you are planning on doing this race, I would suggest signing up early as it fills up QUICK. The date of this year's race is 8/30).

Remembrance Run 5k: I had included Melissa's noteworthy performance in last Monday's email, but the official result was the win and a new PR of 18:30 (previous PR was 18:58 from Shamrock 5k 2008). Old Man Berardi ran a stellar 16:58 en route to 6th place. It was a very quick race.

Donate Life 5k: This is the race that Ben and I were timing - our first as race timers. While the organizer wanted to change the course on race morning and it became a 2.35 mile race instead, most of the people were okay with it. Megan McNew ran with a friend, of course the time was basically irrelevant. Special thanks to the following people who volunteered and made our day a lot easier: Jim Adams, Arjun, Melissa, Eileen, Chrissie, Kris and Joel Gladfelter. We really appreciated the help.

Lancaster Road (bike) Race: Alex went up to Lancaster for a hard 40 mile road race, consisting of either 8 or 10 mile circuits, and after blowing up he raced smart and picked off a bunch of other riders who had also blown up, finishing in the top third.

Howard County neighborhood library 5k: This will probably not show up in the results anywhere, but Tom Stott ran a 17:19 on what he felt was a short course (maybe 3 miles).

Brooklyn Half Marathon: It's not often that we have 3 members all at the same random race out of state, but that was the scenario at the BK Half. Sara Spears lowered her PR from Philly Distance Run by a little bit, running a 1:55:58. Not bad for being out of the country the previous 3 weeks! Beth Shepard also ran a PR, by nearly 2 minutes to 2:17:36. My brother Kevin ran a 3 minute PR from his Miami Half time, despite a timing debacle at the start of the race, finishing in 1:51:20. Fuhgettaboutit!

Saturday afternoon we had our first Team TWSS picnic over at Patapsco. All in all it was a large success and I'm sure we'll try and pull at least one more of these off before the summer's over. Thanks to everyone who attended and made super delicious food to share.

Bob Potts Memorial Marathon: She finally did it! Before Frederick, Cynthia Evans had run a 4:5x marathon. She desperately wanted to get to the point where she could run the 4:05 Boston Qualifier. She ran a 4:06:09 at Frederick last than a month ago, and came into this weekend's Bob Potts Memorial Marathon ready to pounce. The result - 3:57 and a huge new PR. Great job Cynthia!

Maryland Half Marathon: The times at this one make it appear as if somebody or somebodies could have gone and fought it out for a W, but believe me, the course was challenging. With a 1:18 as the winning time, and rain in the morning, it had to have been tough. Our favorite, Lee DiPietro, finished 2nd in 1:27:34, it's nice to see her name back in the results, and Dr. Rodney Taylor went 23rd in 1:29:31. For a minute I thought Joel Hollywood Brusewitz was going to run, but he probably showed up 5 minutes late and then just jumped in for a few of the miles - ha!

With so many PRs, this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week was a particular challenge, but when a BQ is on the line and you run a 9 minute marathon PR, PDAW smiles upon you, so congratulations Cynthia for your first PDAW!

And don't forget - this week we are OFF the track, doing hills at Robert E Lee. We'll still meet at Gilman at 6:30 and a few minutes later we'll warmup to the hill. If you're going to be late, you'll have to meet us there. It's about 2 miles north of the track. We'll start at 7, so you are welcome to drive to REL and warmup there or something.