Rock of Ages

That seemed to be the theme of the weekend, with Dallas "Run the Rock" Marathon and Las Vegas "Is This Really A" Marathon, or is it a party?

In local racing, Dan Miranda and Eileen Fleck took respective wins at the Jingle Bell 5k in Ellicott City.  Dan ran 16:43, a good 40 seconds up on 2nd place, and Eileen ran 19:12.  That's Eileen's 3rd 5k victory in a month, and a good end to her all season.  For Dan, he it was also a nice little diversion from his last two weekends of racing long stuff.

At Brian's Run 5M, Chrissie Ramsey finished 4th in 28:51, which she said afterwards was the result of her racing stupidly.  Obviously not a bad time, but slower than the average pace of her half from two weeks ago.  Andy Thivierge, also two weeks off his own big race at Philly, slotted in at 37th in 31:14.

Then it was down to the National Harbor for the Hot Chocolate 5k/15k.  Yes, we heard this was an absolutely feces expo, but we'll dismiss that for the time and just mention Christa Wagner's awesome 15k race.  She finished 32nd in 1:03:03, which is under 6:50 pace, and a huge result for her.

In Palm Beach, Lee DiPietro returned to the site of some of her lifetimes palmares, as she finished 2nd at the Marathon of the Palms in 3:18:09.  Apparently it was a challenging day down there, with wind over 20mph and temps in the mid 70s. 

At Dallas White Rock Marathon, PJ Anderer rocked a 28 minute PR, running 3:35:38.  His plan was to go out with the 3:30 group, but that plan was scratched when there WAS no 3:30 group, just a 3:25.  He knew by going out with them it could be a suicide mission, but he threw caution to the wind (which there was a lot of in TX) and took off guns-a-blazing.  Threw the half in 1:41:30, he was well ahead of pace until 17, when the 3:25 group caught and passed him.  The last 5 miles were a grind, but he got it done, and was rewarded with a great new PR.

In nighttime action, David Lee took on the Las Vegas Marathon.  This year's race started at 4pm, with the half starting at 5:30pm, and the newly designed course kept runners closer to the action, rather than taking them out to the desert.  David started out hot, keeping the 3:10 goal in sight through the half, but around 20 he must have been feeling it, as his pace slowed.  He was able to pull it back though, and finish at 3:23:43, a 1 minute PR for him.

Great job everyone, nice to see marathon season was extended by a week.  And for our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week - PJ Anderer - it was a great end to a year he went into with no expectations!

Tomorrow some people will be hitting the track for various workouts.  We are relabeling TNT as "WTW" or Winter Track Warriors for the time being.  6:30pm still the meeting time.  Ed will be doing shorter stuff to get his turnover going ahead of his indoor race this weekend, while Tristram appears to be doing 1mi-3mi-1mi. 

AWARDS NIGHT is Sunday, 5pm, Falls Road Running Store.  If you haven't RSVP'd, please do so!