Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Moves Like Meeker

Obviously I've recapped the RM Classic 5k, and you'll all be pleased to know that we raised the following amounts of money and awareness:

Money: $0
Awareness: 10.0%

I wasn't sure if Awareness should be measured in per cent form, or just a sliding scale, but either way apparently Conrad had been previously unaware that "we got him" so of the 20 or so people on the track, Conrad and Liz were made aware.

It was a proud weekend for our minions around the country, here's how everyone fared:

Joel Gladfelter finished 3rd at the Western Maryland Half Marathon.  His previous best half marathon was just a shade over 1:24, and with a summer full of ups and downs, Joel wasn't sure what to expect of this race.  He ran smart though, and was rewarded with a new personal best of 1:23:40.  At the Bottle and Cork 10 Miler, Denise Knickman cruised to the victory in 1:06:20, while Lillian Pinault ran a 1:17:52 for 11th.  Patrick O'Rourke won the Jessica Jacobson Memorial 5k in the unbelievable time of 15:37.  Apparently the motorcycle cop took runners off course, and somehow Patrick, who was in 4th at the time, was able to bridge to the leaders and won the 2.8 mile race.

At the Run to Remember 5k, Ben Ingram of the Runners' Retreat Elite Squad, formerly of Falls Road, donned his neon orange singlet and after the gun, found himself in the lead of this 1900 person race.  He had a false sense of hope that he was going to blaze to the victory, until Jesse Jaeger came up and joined his wolfpack.  Jesse of course recently ran a 15:40ish on the track, which enabled him to burn Ben in the finale.  Ben would finish 2nd in 16:34.  For the women, it was a very entertaining race to watch unfold.  New Becky Parks sat in the lead for 3 miles, with Carly Page just meters behind, until, with less than 200m to go, Carly hit the NOS button and zoomed by on the decisive Warren Ave climb.  Carly won in 19:28 with NBP in 2nd at 19:37.

In the Triathlete's Corner, while some of our races (cough Lancaster cough) were canceled altogether, most of us were still able to compete.  At the Nation's Tri in DC, they had canceled just the swim, making it into a T1-Bike-T2-Run race.  Andy "Chicken Tender" Sovonick and Tommy McLoughlin, members of Team CYB, were in action, with Andy finishing 6th and Tommy 72nd (this is a 5000 person race).  Out in Madison, WI, good luck charm Brennan Feldhausen brought swiftness to his sister, Erin.  She cut through the water like a graceful dolphin, and then stormed the bike as if she were in the Tour before kicking the marathon swiftly in the rear.  She ended up with an 11:38 big time PR for that race. 

Las Vegas was playing host for the first time to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.  I questioned the move as why would anybody want to race in LV in September, when the average temp is over 100 degrees?  David Lee and Alyssa Godesky were about to find out.  With a bike and run course that were uneviably difficult, the two powered the best they could up and down and finished with great results.  For David (5:02:13) it was the cap to a very good season.  He ran a 1:42 half marathon split on the tough course.  For Alyssa, just two weeks off IM Louisville, competing in this challenging event proved, well, challenging, but she finished at 5:29:25.

The other running event of the day was the Parks Half Marathon, where both Kris Simms and Meg McNew were just over a minute off of their personal bests, which is a good sign of fitness as they approach fall marathon season!  Kris ran 1:21:44 and Meg was 1:27:06.

That brought us to our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week, and while it literally could have been anyone this weekend, the honor went to Dustin Meeker.  A 15:40 track 5k PR (and only 7 seconds off his 5k PR from Shamrock, which I would say is about equal) and defending his title at the RM Classic was enough to earn him the award.

3 comments:

Dart said...

I found a dime on the way home that night... That should be donated. Where do the proceeds go?

///MM said...

YES! "competing in this challenging event proved, well, challenging"
That totally reminds me of when, on the Real World/Road Rules challenge, TJ Lavin would say things like "that was a very challenging challenge" before sending the teams off to vote people to face off the Gauntlet.

RM said...

WAIT A SECOND...

Mike - you watch the RW/RR Challenge???