Work Hard, Play Hard

Preakness wasn't the only show this weekend, as a number of our stallions were out competing all over the country. And yes, I do realize that stallions do not race in the Preakness Stakes. Big shout to my boy, Wiz Khalifa, who performed at Preakness. Remember, he tells us that "the bigger the bill, the harder you ball."

First, a race result I missed from the weekend, Pete Mulligan is officially a Dirty German, as he ran the Dirty German 50 Miler at Pennypack Park in Pennsylvania. He finished in 9:58:55 - a 37 minute distance best - and finished 25th. Interestingly, this is the same race organization that put on the race where Brennan won the cuckoo clock last fall.

Half Marathons

4 people ran half marathons, and half of them won. Meg McNew was the overall winner at the MAC Half Marathon in a pedestrian 1:26:59, defeating a 15 year old boy. At the St. Michael's boring as $%^#  Half Marathon, PJ Anderer finished 26th in 1:37:23. In Papillion, Nebraska, Ben Ingram won the Papillion Half in 1:19:03. And up in Green Bay, Brennan Feldhausen finished 19th in 1:19:45. The big story out of Green Bay was that due to "excessive" heat (upper 80s) the race directors closed/stopped the race at 2 hours and 35 minutes. Just stopped it dead. More on this story later.

Other Races

Mike Mashner won the inaugural Upper Dublin Sprint Triathlon, using a lethal combination of SBR to roll to a win in 57 minutes. Elsewhere in PA, Lillian Pinault was 3rd F at the Ironton Rail Trail 10k in 43:53. Drew Thivierge won the DE-Feet Breast Cancer 5k in Rehoboth in 18:02, on trails. Lee DiPietro won the Red Hot Run 5k in 20:38. Lots of winning! Sara Damiano recorded a 3:50:01 in unseasonably warm Maine at the Sugarloaf Marathon. Tom, Patty, and Haleigh Stott ran the Making Tracks for Celiac 5k at UMBC. In Haleigh's first race, she set a personal best of 26:45, which included a 3+ minute milk-break on the course.

COLUMBIA TRIATHLON

The weekend's marquee event was the Columbia Triathlon. A stellar field of pros was assembled, including former DC resident/GRCer, pro Lindsey Jerdonek, the 2011 winner. It was the "nicest" day I've ever seen at Columbia - not a hint of rain, warm temps, warm water - very un-Columbia. But maybe we perform better in the worse conditions, because nobody performed particularly well. It was a lot of mediocre. GRCers Matias Palavecino and Andy Sovonick fared the best, with Andy recorded a fast swim and a bike PR en route to a 2:09:51 23rd place finish. Brian Benda (2:10:27), Marc Malott (2:10:58), Anthony van Lierop (2:11:07) were all pretty close, and I was closing on OJ Keller (2:12:46) but he was able to stay far enough away (in fairness, OJ did have to ride his road bike). David Lee went 2:18:23, and in his first triathlon ever, Aaron Tripp went 2:39:49! Ashley aka Smashley Campbell, M.D., in her first Columbia, went 2:42:49. Still a great event, and many thanks to the group of supporters that came out early on a Sunday morning: Alyssa, Ed, Arjun, Melissa, Pat, and Michelle Miller. They earned this week's KC Masterpiece Award.

Purple Drink Athlete of the Week

Our PDAW this week went to Becky Parks, who, on her birthday, ran a PR and TWSS record of 47:47 for 12k at the Bay to Breakers 12k in San Fran. She finished 19th among women over nearly 12,000 female finishers!

Our Sandbagger of the Week award went to Meg McNew.