All The Way Turned Up

Another solid weekend of racing, despite temperatures taking a serious nose-dive.

At the Maryland Invitational, we had a contingent of harriers toeing the line in the 5000m. Ben, Cheese, Arjun and Alex B. Ben ran like a monster, rolling straight 5's en route to a 5th place finish in 15:36. He powered through the field and there are some dope pics in my FB album "A Day at the Races". Alex was running his first race since January's Houston Marathon, and finished at 16:10. Cheese was hot on his heels, running 16:12. Cheese ran 16:23 at this meet last year, so it was a significant improvement. Arjun had an off day and stepped off the track after the mile, but we've all been there - and the track is unkind when you're not feeling 100%.

Up at the Towson Invitational, Louis Foudos ran a great 1500m, winning his heat in 4:22. Megan DiGregorio won the steeple in a new PR (11:13, IC4A qual) and then took 3rd in the 5000m at 17:53. My little sis also ran the steeple, running faster than her first outdoor meet of last year, so on the right track!

Down in Richmond at Ukrops Monument Ave 10k, some really good performances: Ashish Patel, coming off sickness following the Gate River Run 15k in JAX, turned out a 33:52 for 24th. Mary Bertram, who went to Richmond and is a former employee of FRRS, was 7th in 36:22. Eileen Fleck ran 39:28 I believe last year, and this year dropped a 38:31 for 12th. Ashley Olson and Nina Kristina started in the WAY back and their gun times were around 90 minutes, but their chips recorded them at 41:48 adn 41:28, respectively. Great time for Nina - equals her mark of 41:28 from Race For Our Kids 10k last year. Dr. J was a surprise racer, signing up at the last minute, and ran 41:30.

At the Squeal Appeak 5k in Baltimore, Joel Gladfelter ran a tremendous race to finish 6th in 18:50 - and the course was long, at a potential 3.27 miles. This would mean a race definitely under 18 minutes. For the winner, who just ran under 16:20 at Shamrock yet finished 17:20ish here, I'd say that's about right.

Sunday was the Fools 25k Trail Run, in which T. Baptiste (whose birthday was yesterday) took 3rd in 1h56m. He said it was real tough but a fun time. Then Cheese and I celebrated T's birf by eating chicken slathered in Sweet Baby Ray's.

Final event of the weekend was the Blue Gold 5k at Salesanium HS in Delaware, where Meg McNew, just the day after her 22mi training run, ran a 19:31 to win!

That leaves our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week. Last year Eileen Fleck did a number of 10k races, mostly in the 39 range before finally getting down to 38:10 by October. She ran a minute faster this year at Ukrops than she did last year, and so Eileen Fleck earns her first PDAW since August of 2008!

Tonight at the Track:

We have a few workouts going on, with Melissa doing 9xMile w/1min rest, and Chrissie doing 3x(1k @ 5k pace, 600m @ 5k pace, 2x200 @ 1500m pace) w/400m jog after each interval and 800m jog after each set. Ben is doing something different, and Cheese and I discussed something as well. So in short, there will be like 30 different workouts going on. Everyone can decided which they'd rather do when we get there.