We Fly High

Is the 50k the new Marathon? For our team this winter it's sure seemed that way.

The Holiday Lake 50k was held in Virginia last weekend in tough winter conditions. As if the late-week snowfall wasn't enough, it was cold and raining on race morning. The Pecks - Graham, Henry and Kaylyn - took to the trails for this out-and-back race. Even in long trail races, typically someone will surge to the front to get the clear path, but in this case being in the lead meant breaking the ice (LITERALLY). Graham allowed a couple of racers to go up ahead, until he found that he was 4 minutes down at one point. That's when he decided to pick it up, and eventually passed the leader before the turnaround. Graham went onto negative split the race, 2:24:xx to a 2:06:xx, finishing in 4:31. A slow time - perhaps the slowest winning time ever, he said - but his margin of victory was a decisive 20 minutes, which was one of the largest ever. Great job Graham! Mr. Peck came in 23rd at 5:48 and Kay finished 6th among the women at 6:10.

I know of at least one GW Birthday race that got canceled after the snowstorm on Thursday, but fortunately for our fearsome foursome of Erik T. Orberg, Nick Klastava, Dan Miranda and Sara Damiano, their GW Birthday 10k was not canceled. It was, however, a chilly morning. The kind that's tough to get your engine revved up. Erik fared well, finishing 11th in 34:33, and Nick came in 16th at 36:26. Dan had been sick for most of the week, but had already signed up so just kind of ran, coming in at 38:03. The day's big mover was Sara Damiano, who ran 43:49. That's a new PR and in her first race of 2014 she picked up right where she left off at the end of 2013.

It was also good enough to earn Sara D this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week!

We're just a few days away from Club Challenge 2k14, and it's hard to believe that we're already at this point of the year. It's been one of the most draining winters I've seen in my 9 years here, but you've all managed well. As the name implies, the race is hard, but the real challenge is motivating and fielding a competitive team! We had a bunch of people move in the last year, and haven't been able to back-fill with new blood. A few are injured or unable to make it, but I'm confident that come Sunday morning we'll be ready to go.

I've sent an email to those who are registered and have heard back from just about everyone, so this team is locked. I sent our final roster back to the RD today.

If you're injured and want to come out and support the team, which is a really nice and good-teammate thing to do, the race starts at 8. If you want to meet up after, which is frowned upon if you didn't race but I suppose we can let it slide, feel free to assemble at Kisling's at 11:30.