Light 'Em Up

Alas, between Celtic Solstice, Awards Night, and Christmas, I neglected to post any sort of recap!

Here's what's been going on:

Celtic Solstice

As always, a very fun event and a great race up front. This is one of Dave Berdan's favorite races, and he's pretty used to winning when he toes the line. But it's tough to continue to win year after year, particularly as his focus has moved away from shorter races. Erik Anderson came out to play this year and took the win in a stellar time of 25:14, ahead of Dave's 25:36. There were obviously a lot of people racing so I won't recap everyone's result, but want to recognize a couple of people.

Justin Gerbereux showed up. Totally surprised by that, didn't know he was even running! He finished in 31:36, which I thought was pretty darn good. And how about Eileen Fleck?! Didn't know she was running, either, and she blazed to a 32:40 finish for 11th woman! That's incredible. Great race by Jon Miller, another fine result for Sara Damiano, and of course our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week that week went to Patty Stott, who ran a HUGE PR (40:57)!

Of course the race would not be possible without the amazing efforts of all the volunteers and staff at Falls Road, so many thanks!

Awards Night

With the postponement from the week prior, it gave me a whole 'nother week to think about what I was going to say, and well, you were there - it was pretty obvious I nailed it. It's a fun night of high energy, plenty of pizza, and delicious desserts. It was even cool that a few people actually dressed up!

When it was all said and done, our 2013 Most Outstanding Performers were Melissa Majumdar and Nate Brigham. Melissa won the Resolution Run 5k on 1/1, then Club Challenge, Shamrock 5k, and in the summer won her first multisport race. She set a number of PRs along the way and really seemed to enjoy running this year. Nate ran a pair of half marathons, going from a 1:10 in March to a 1:08 in October, a fast 5M, and ran two marathons. It was a great year for Nate.

Our Coach's Awards went to Carly Page and Andy Sovonick, and Most Improved went to PJ Anderer and Sara Breedlove. Our Comeback of the Year Awards went to Sara Damiano and Joel Gladfelter. Now that Ke$ha seems to be behaving, we renamed her award to the Amanda Bynes Award and gave that to Kaylyn Peck, and the Bert & Ernie Award went to Nick Klastava and Dan Miranda.

The Brita Grothe Best Ass Award went to Kris Simms, who couldn't be in attendance because he was polishing up his glutes, and the Performances of the Year went to Carly Page's 3:02 at Richmond and Conrad Laskowski's 24:49 Downs Park 5 Miler.

We also honored some of the pioneers of our running community with the induction of the inaugural class of Hall of Famers. These included: Alyssa Godesky, Arjun Majumdar, Ben Ingram, Brennan Feldhausen, Chrissie Ramsey, Denise Knickman, Joel Gladfelter, and Melissa Majumdar. These folks have all brought so much to our group and I was excited to recognize them for their efforts.

Christmas Lights Run

On Thursday the 19th we had our annual Christmas Lights Run. An enormous group met in the Harbor at 6:30pm to run north. We did a ceremonial "hot lap" around the Monument, and continued up Fallsway to Hampden to see the 34th Street lights. A short stop there and we were back on our way down St. Paul, running past the Mercy Hospital lights before ending in front of the Power Plant to see the 8pm lights show. It was a great run with a terrific turnout (over 30!) - pace was chill and the weather was awesome. I think this is the 3rd or 4th year of doing this.

Headlamp Run

Although overshadowed by Christmas week (many people were already out of town) and the Christmas Lights Run, a small group did make it out for the Fed Hill Runners Headlamp Run. Named in honor of Collin Anderson, this tradition recognizes the shortest Monday of the year by us running with bright/lighted clothes and hats and stuff. It was fun.

Coming up this week we'll get to check out ALL the #TWSSChristmas photos (and vote on our favorites!) and it's NEW YEAR'S WEEK which means everything that happened this year gets wiped clean and I get to start over with a brand new spreadsheet!