There's the Rub

*Today's post title in honor of Billy Shakespeare's birthday

Okay so I've missed a couple of weekends' worth of recaps. SO SUE ME. Sometimes I get busy. This will be a major highlights post, and I won't even get into recapping the Boston Marathon in this one.

Let's see, the first weekend in April was Cherry Blossom. As we all know by now because he's reminded us a million times (psyche, he hasn't, he's too modest), Conrad Laskowski ran one of the best races of all time. He finished 29th in 50:32, which is utterly incredible. Andy Sovonick, who was forced to cross train much of the winter/extended winter due to a calf/Achilles injury, ran an unbelievable comeback race, negative splitting to a 56:51 (27:30 back 5). Brennan Feldhausen ran 10 miles @ sub 6 pace in the middle of his last training run before Boston. A trio of ladies - Denise Knickman, Amy Horst and Christa Wagner - represented 65, 66 and 67 minutes, respectively.

The day before Cherry Blossom was the Charlottesville Marathon, Half and 8k. Carly Page and I went down to run and support the Bad to the Bone team, who puts on this great event. Charlottesville is a cool town, and with options for everyone AND a Saturday race, I encourage anyone looking for a challenging spring getaway race (that's not too far) to consider this one for next year. Carly took 3rd F in the 8k, and I ran a terribly slow half marathon.

Other notables: Pete Mulligan ran his first, and probably last, 100 miler at the Umstead 100; Ben and Kendra Ingram went out to Arizona and raced a 10k on Saturday (Ben won) and then a 4000m open water swim in Tempe Town Lake the next day.

The Purple Drink Athlete of the Week went to Conrad.

The following weekend saw a lot of people in action all over the place. Dustin Meeker ran a 4:07.55 (PB) 1500m at the Hopkins/Loyola Invite. There were a number racing the Sole of the City, including Max Hacker, who finished 2nd at 33:43, and Megan DiGregorio, who was also 2nd. We saw Cory Donovan run a 10k PR (39:24) and Suzanne Hurst returned to racing!

Sunday was a big day for Erik T. Orberg across the pond, as he absolutely decimated the streets of Vienna. From what I'm told, the place was full of Wieners. I'm sorry, but that joke will never get old for me because saying the word "wiener" is funny. Anyway Erik ran a 2:39 at Philly in the fall and the work this guy was doing all winter was, to say the least, impressive. A patient, talented and dedicated athlete, Erik rolled a 2:35:46 to establish himself in the record books as one of our Top 10 Marathoners of all time!

Locally, we had a few stretch out their legs along the GW Parkway at the 10 miler down there. Dave Berdan showed he's back on track following a hit of the norovirus. He ran 51:24 for 4th. Graham Peck, who's been forced to take it a bit easy in the past few weeks due to a finicky leg, was 8th in 54:06. And Tom Stott, who has not raced longer than a 5k in I'd have to guess at least 18 months after breaking the same foot TWICE in that period, ran a 1:09:53 negative split. That was good enough to earn him that week's PDAW.

One of our mid-April favorites has become the downhill Westminster Main Street Mile. For various reasons this year the participation (on our part, not the race's) decreased. Just a couple of us went out for it. It was a chilly and windy night, but much better than had the race been the previous day when it snowed! Ryan Stasiowski was able to take the win in 4:15, while Arjun Majumdar was 6th in 4:27. Tom Stack finished 10th in 4:36 and Kris Simms was just behind in 4:37 (top Master). Christa Wagner, our lone women's team, was 3rd in 5:07.

Just a few days earlier, Kris won the Brighter Than the Sun 5k, a low key race on his birthday. Tom Stack, same day, was 5th at the Hopkins Blue Jay 5k in 17:17.

Boston was technically this week, but I count it as an extension of the previous one. There was also the B.A.A. 5k, not held on Easter Sunday, but rather on Saturday. Dustin Meeker ran 15:25 for 28th place and Steve Febish came in at 16:44.

Down at the Kentucky Derby Marathon, Jackie Range (3:20) and Sara Damiano (4:15) paced their marathon groups perfectly!