Take a Dirty Picture

Oh....snap

Not a lot by way of racing this past weekend, Crossroads at 95 Challenge featured Megan DiGregorio taking 4th and Denise Knickman taking 6th; Scarecrow Classic 5k saw Louis Foudos take 2nd in 18:26.

On the Emerald Isle, Tom "Scott" Stott was racing his first ever marathon, the adidas Dublin Marathon (actually the marathon is sponsored by Lifestyle, not sure if that's the condom manufacturer or what). Based on the splits, it looked like a challenging run for Tommy Boy today, hitting the half in a reasonable 1:33:57, but that 2nd half humbles us all. Nevertheless, he finished up at 3:34:16. Been there. His wife Patty, however, killed it, running 4:16:03 - way faster than her goal of 4:30! Jan Cook, in his 2nd marathon in two weekends, ran 4:48, and I'm sure he drank mad Guinesses en route.

Claire Lears performed very well at the Pumpkinman Triathlon (half iron) in Vegas. She had one of her best swims ever, and followed the bike with a terrific run. Looks like the bike leg was mad hard.

Army Ten Miler was the big race of the weekend, and Ed Aramayo held it down. He's run a lot this year, and nailed some PRs along the way in the 5k and 8k. Recent workouts suggested he was in shape for a monster performance, and he didn't disappoint. With another year of tremendous weather (seriously, it was gorgeous down in DC), Ed ran a sensible first mile (5:19) and then came through 5 in 26:44. After another 5:19 mile 6, he said miles 7, 8 and 9 were tough. He held on though, and finished 42nd in 54:10, a mere 5 seconds slower than what Ben ran there last year. Joel Brusewitz completely surprised me with his 1:00:11. I feel like he's the type that could not run for a year and then drop a 58, but I also felt there was no way he would run under 1:02. Well, I was wrong. 5:35 first mile, settled in, ended up averaging 6:01. Great job Joel! Dave Ploskonka ran 1:08:28, not bad for not doing any speedwork! Final competitor was Sara J. Spears, who somehow ran a 1:22:29 PR. It was 5 minutes faster than she ran there last year and I think a 2 minute distance PR. Truly great work.

Since I'm an idiot, and haven't been checking my work lately, I realized I forgot to let you know who the Purple Drink Athlete of the Week is in the email. So in case you didn't guess, Cheese earned it this week.

We've got a lot of miscellaneous stuff this week, so read the bullet points:

1) TNT - tomorrow will be RELAY night at the track. It will also be our last "official" track practice for the season. I'll probably keep going for a few more weeks, but workouts will be unstructured.

2) Awards Night MMX - I'd like to start planning this. Tentatively, since Celtic Solstice takes place on Saturday December 18, I think that works out well to do awards following the run. Maybe not right after, but in the afternoon or something. Keep you posted.

3) Miami 2k11 - I also need to start planning, so if you're interested in going, please let me know sooner than later.

4) Celtic Solstice - race is filling up, if you intend on racing, sign up! Whether you plan on racing or not, this race always needs lots of volunteers, so let Jim know if you can help out.

5) Final order of business is Sunday Long Run, Halloween edition. I've received two emails back thus far so I'll make sure to post by Weds or Thurs the plans for the weekend.