Double Rainbow All the Way

Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head

As evidenced by the results and my massively long email on Monday morning, we had a great showing at the Baltimore Running Festival. Before I do a brief(er) writeup, I would be remiss to not point out two outstanding performances that I missed in the email!

Ed Jablonski, just one WEEK off his impressive Ironman World Championship race (where he ran a 3:40 marathon), was pacing the 3:30 group at Baltimore. He brought them in just under 3:29. That's unreal. And Jan Cook, who is one of a select group of 37 people to have now finished all 10 Baltimore Marathons, ran a 4:11 - a 14 minute improvement over last year. Next up for Jan is Dublin (this weekend) and then Philly Marathon next month.

THE MARATHON - Berdan runs 2:29:01 for 13th place, while Meg McNew runs 3:19:41 for her third marathon this year, finishing 22nd. Five weeks off his Ironman, Ben Winterroth ran a stellar 3:21:59, and Cynthia Evans was a little faster than last year in 4:05:30. Pete Mulligan paced the 4:30 group.

THE HALF MARATHON - Patrick O'Rourke drops a 1:17:59 for 5th, while Tim Parker cuts 1:44 off his 2009 time running 1:22:02 for 10th. Erik Westlund finishes 20th in 1:24:56, Tom Stewart 30th in 1:27:24. John Eisenhardt, getting ready for Philly Marathon, ran 1:31:40. Our ladies steamrolled the event, with Suzanne Hurst shaving 41 seconds off her PR (and finishing 3rd, 1:28:37), Jackie Truncellito in 6th at 1:30:23 and Anastasia Mukhina at 7th in a PR of 1:30:56. Becky Parks ran 2:00:18.

THE 5K - Tristram Thomas places 2nd in a gnarly 15:51, one of the fastest 5k's this year. New Becky Parks gets 3rd in 19:44 while Christa Wagner takes 11th in 21:45.

THE RELAY - Many, many of you ran the relay so I won't mention you all.

This led to the ultimate decision of Tim Parker being this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week. He has been working extremely hard under the tutelage of Coach Jeff Gaudette, and to run nearly 2 minutes faster year over year is, to say the last, impressive. So close to getting under 1:22! Maybe at Richmond.

A few other results from the weekend, including Lee DiPietro's 6th place 1:26:06 finish at a half marathon in Newport, Rhode Island, and Joel Gladfelter's 50 mile relay, in which he ran 27.8 miles in 3:25 or so.

Small group at track tonight, so I think we'll make next week our last "official" TNT of the season. We'll see. Maybe two more weeks.