We Got That Power

Another post that I'm way behind on, but don't fret, I'm getting it done systematically.

Early January is like a desert for races. Someone asked on a run recently "are there any big races coming up?" We said no. "Any races like 5-10km?" No. "Any races with good competition or money?" NO.

It's freaking January on the East Coast. Nobody wants to race. And if you're competitive, you're probably content with training through until spring, when there ARE big races! Unless you are racing indoor track, there ain't shit.

And that's why Ed Aramayo ran the Gotham Cup at the Armory in NYC on Friday evening. Against a field of mostly college kids and a handful of post-collegiates, Ed, who isn't getting any younger, ran the 1000 meter event. 5 laps around the track up there, and he hasn't raced on the indoor oval in 20 months. That season was pretty good though, when he ran 2:32 for 1000m and ultimately went onto a number of outdoor track PRs.

But what could he expect of himself after such a long layoff? He hasn't been doing "track specific" workouts, and his 2 months of working out on the West Coast left him in the red in terms of running mileage. He toed the line and let the race happen. And happen it did. A kid in front of him just after the 2nd lap stepped on the rail and went down, causing a chain reaction of fallers. Ed deftly hurdled them, and went onto win the heat in 2:38.09. Far from a time he would have been happy with, but he followed the #1 rule of racing indoors: RACE THE RACE. Note: he did not get beat by Mary Cain.

Kevin McGrath headed back to Central Park to run in the Joe Kleinerman 10k, a full lap around CP. The torrential rain of Saturday stopped just before the race and held off for it, and apparently it was warmer up there than here (where it was 37 and rainy). A couple of folks ran the BRRC Frozen Finger 5M, including winner Jack Flowers (don't you go to college?!), PJ Anderer, Johnny Lyons, Terry Decker and Denise Knickman, who was 2nd for the women.

Ed earned this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week.

Hopefully next week I'll put a little more time into giving everyone some fun stuff to read on the blog.

A Place Called Kokomo

In the Florida Keys, Arjun Majumdar ran the Miami-Key West Ragnar Relay with some friends.  While we were here, suffering through spring-like temperatures, Arjun got to run 3 legs of varying distances, at high rates of speed, with friends, surrounded by quietly beautiful scenery. 

This weekend also kicked off the indoor season for those athletes not averse to running fast around a small oval.  Ed Aramayo traveled up to NYC's Armory for the Metro Coaches Invitational.  Ed raced the 1000m, running 2:34.61 and finishing 3rd in his heat (10th overall).  He therefore established a Team record for the distance.  Later in the meet, he was tapped to run a leg of the 4x800m relay for Central Park Track Club, where he split 2:02.  In the same meet, Alan Webb made his return to racing, finishing 2nd in the 800m.

At the PG Complex on Sunday, Tristram Thomas (4:32), Tim Burns (4:38), and newcomer Chris Snyder (4:40) ran the 1600m.  Results may never show up for this one, as Potomac Valley Track Club no longer puts on these meets, but that was the report I received from TT.  And they channeled their inner Spider Sillery, arriving just 5 minutes before the gun.

Dave Ploskonka clearly feels no need to sit on his laurels, as he headed to Texas for the highly competitive Bandera 100k.  According to an ultra insider, Dave's 10h17m race and 11th place finish is "very, very good."  I'll take it!  Editor's note: I just found out that this event served as the 2012 USATF 100k Trail National Championship, so even cooler!

The BRRC was holding its Frozen Finger 5M on Saturday, but there were a few inconsistencies: 1) it wasn't 5 miles and 2) it was hardly frozen.  With morning temps in the 50s, and a course change to a more cross-country style loop course at the Park School, it wasn't quite the event some were expecting, but I did hear that Denise Knickman took the win.

In a land Down Under, Kevin Frick started his year off with the Sydney Resolution Run 11k, running 50:20 for 29th place. 

But the big result(s) of the weekend belonged to Pete Mulligan.  A few of Pete's long run friends were going to do two marathons this weekend.  The first was the Mississippi Blues Marathon in Jackson, MS, on Saturday.  Pete described the course as "Baltimore from 16-22, except starting at mile 2 and not ending until 24"- in other words, very hilly!  With temperatures well into the 70s, combined with the course profile, Pete's goal of getting under 4 was scaled back.  He finished just over 4:08, and after a short break, hopped in the car for the 3.5 hour drive to Mobile, Alabama, for Sunday's First Light Marathon.  While the course was pancake flat, with a marathon already in the legs, and the temperature hitting 76 degrees, Pete was not feeling it.  Physically, he said, he was alright, but mentally it was a long day for him, as he finished in 4:12:35 for 135th place.  But, for doing the double, Pete was rewarded with an EXTRA medal, and with his bib from Sunday's race, he earned a complimentary ticket to the GoDaddy.com Bowl, featuring Arkansas State and Northern Illinois. 

With 52.4 miles of racing, 3 medals, 2 t-shirts, and a Bowl game appearance, Pete has earned the first Purple Drink Athlete of the Week.

This week is an exciting one as Chrissie Ramsey heads down to Houston for the 2012 US Olympic Trials Marathon.  And the Houston Texans head here, to Baltimore, in the NFL Playoffs.  I predict Houston is going to get blazed coming and going.  Go Chrissie!

TRACK WORKOUT UPDATE: While it looks like the popular vote is to do a workout Tuesday, Ed and Arjun are going to look to Wednesday as their preferred day at the track.  If you generally do your workouts with them, get in touch with Ed for details.

Early Bird Catches the Rabid Deer

So some results I missed in this afternoon's email...

1. Meg McNew finished 2nd at the BRRC Bunker Hill Trail Race (5.5 mile) in 48:14, while Dan Goodman was 47th in 1:15:55.  The craziest thing about these results is that they were posted WITHIN A DAY of the race.  Impressive, BRRC.

2. Remember Tristram Thomas?  I thought he had died or something, but I guess he's just been in Europe for the better part of a month.  Well anyway, he won a race in Denmark over the weekend.  He's not sure how accurate the 5k was, but he ran 16:41, with one dude 7 seconds back and then the rest of the field over 90 seconds back from there.  It's the 4th fastest time ever run on the course (10 years, course is run every weekend of the summer).  Good to know Tristram is still alive, and we may even see him tomorrow!

The rest of the results are pretty known by now, with Dave Ploskonka breaking his 50k best with his 6th place, 4:10:06 finish at the Dahlgren Heritage Rail Trail 50k and Dave Berardi finishing 25th in 20:12 at the HCS Summer XC Series race last Thursday.

Most of Sunday's results were either from Riley's Rumble Half Marathon or various triathlons.  Sam Wollner, with one of the fastest swims of the day (possibly the fastest outside of the professional field), finished 47th at the NYC Triathlon in 2:17:15, his first olympic distance race.  Terry Decker finished 17th at the Cayuga Lake Sprint Tri, with the 8th fastest run of the day, while his girlfriend Molly, in her first ever triathlon, finished 11th in her age group.  At the inaugural Druid Hill Sprint Tri, Liz Laseter got the W for the women, breaking an hour and having the fastest run of the day. 

Then there was Riley's Rumble, easily the most difficult half marathon I've ever run.  Not one inch of the run was flat, you were either going up or down some pretty brutal hills out there in Germantown.  Add to that a temperature around 80 degrees and 94% humidity and it was a recipe for suffering.  Most of us that ran were using it as a training run, but that didn't make it any less hard.  GRCers Karl Dusen and Sam Luff rolled the course, looking comfortable in their 1:16:30 efforts, while our Ed Aramayo finished 3rd in 1:22:36.  He accomplished his task of running under 1:25 to get into a better corral than the last one at Chicago.  Mike Mashner and I were running nicely together around 7 minute pace for the first 9 miles, when my legs dropped out and I shuffled home.  Mike was 15th in 1:33:59 while I finished up 18th at 1:34:41.  I got beat by the first girl, Baltimore local Kaylyn Peck.  It was cool, though, as she waited until the last quarter mile to pass me, and then slowed down to chat.  JUST KILL ME NOW, is what I thought, as I only kept moving my legs so it didn't look like I was walking.  After starting out close to 8min pace, Melissa Majumdar picked it up at 5k to catch Nina Kristina Hartman before 10k, and then they ran down a lot of the other girls en route to 5th and 6th place finishes (Melissa 1:39:21, Nina 1:39:48).  Tom Stott, feeling the effects of a summer of buying a new house and working on that, finished up at 1:44:02.  Alyssa Godesky, who ran 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the race, outran her Miami 2010 time, running a 1:47:21.  Pretty impressive!  She then almost got run over by a rabid deer, which crazily sprinted through the parking lot after the race. 

Despite the strong support from the GRC members for the Purple Drink Athlete of the Week to go to myself, I had to go with Liz Laseter in her winning effort at the Druid Hill Tri.  Congrats Liz!  And thanks, GRC guys, for being on hand to watch my amazing finish.  Ha.

An error was pointed out to me from the email today, I threw in an extra set of 5x300 for the TNT workout.  It should have just read 5x300, 1500, 5x300, 1500, 5x300 = 7500m.  Again, just a suggestion, working down throughout the workout on the 300s and keeping the effort on the 1500 the same. 

Tell Me More

I regaled you all with the story of Joel's triumphant track meet last week, and by now you're all aware he was named the week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week, but there were a few other performances I have yet to mention.

Ryan Schmidt raced for the second straight weekend, slightly bettering his performance from the previous week over the 5k distance.  While I owe him a phone call back, it sounds like it went well, considering how much he's been running, and it also seems to have been a cross country race.  Great job!

Out in San Francisco, New Becky Parks raced the 5k (part of the Marathon events), finishing 4th in 19:34.  She went out in 5:50 and then experienced internal distress that left her dizzy and nauseas after the race.  She fell from 2nd and felt she had a shot at cracking 19, but ended up in the med tent.  Way to go!

Dave Ploskonka set a PB for miles covered in the span of 6 hours at the Pajama Run 6 Hour Ultra.  He finished 2nd, covering 46.81 miles.  Just another Saturday night, as Dave put it.  Awesome!

Meg McNew set a 5k PR en route to her 3rd place, 39:16 finish at the Friends of the W&OD Trail 10k.  This is just 8 seconds off her 10k best, set last year at September's Race For Our Kids 10k.  Totally cool!

Great work at the track last night.  It was hard to believe that it was upwards of 97 degrees when we arrived, with lower humidity it didn't feel as bad.  That was a long workout (as evidenced by us getting to Chipotle just before 9pm), but it will pay dividends later in the fall.  If you're looking for a low key race this weekend, BRRC has their Bunker Hill Trail Races up at Hereford, and Annapolis Striders host their annual Dog Days of Summer 8k, which I believe is also a cross country run.  Looking ahead a few weeks, there are two track meets remaining on the calendar, Saturday 8/13's 2 Person/10 Mile Relay and Wednesday 8/17's Summer Track Meet #3, which features the 5000m and a 4x400.  I am planning on running the 5k and as long as we have 4 people, would be interested in a 4x4.  Of course, hopefully there are four people faster than I am so I don't slow us down...

Trail Race Sunday

For those of you looking to run on the trails and also do a fun, low-key race this weekend, check out BRRC's Bunker Hill Trail Races. There is a 5.5 mile race and an 11 mile one (1 vs 2 loops). If you're not headed to Leesburg and don't mind driving up to Hereford (35ish min north), it's a great little event. Info is on www.brrc.com

I Got A Feelin'

More than a feeling, hooked on a feeling - all great songs involving the word feeling. I tell you what I wish I were feeling up on right now...that's right, a big greased up wang.

BEN! Why did you type that??

Anyway I had a busy day today, as I will just about every day this week so I'm just getting around to typing up the online version of the Monday morning email. For their respective race reports, if they're writing them, I'll direct you to Collin Anderson's blog and Alyssa's blog. Collin finished 9th at Mt. Disappointment 50 miler on Saturday and Alyssa finished 3rd at The Dam Race 10.5 miler in Massachusetts. Look at Alyssa racing the shortest distance she's race since last year's Rockville.

Spider did a couple of races this weekend, he sent me an email so I haven't gotten a chance to check out full results but apparently he finished 2nd in a sprint tri on Sunday after running a road race on Saturday. Ahh that Spider.

At Leesburg, Baltimore was represented in the top 10 by Ben (3rd) and Brennan (7th). It was a not-so-far-away far away race in East Bumble, VA. But it was good to see them turn in some good midsummer performances.

Final event of the weekend was the BRRC Bunker Hill Trail Races. There is a single loop (5.5 miles) and a double loop (11 miles) race. Tall Matt Augustin took 11th in the 5.5 one, and Pete was 34th. In the 11 mile joint, Ryan Stasiowski was 1st for men, Pam Maldeis was 1st for women and Christine Trzcinski was 3rd.

The Purple Drink Athlete of the Week - for dealing with humidity, waist-high stream crossings and wasp attacks, all while keeping a smile on his face and helping people navigate across the streams, is Pete Mulligan. Congrats Pete, I think that may be your first ever PDAW!

This week's Tuesday Night Track workout is:

16x400 on 2:00. Run them wisely. That's not a lot of rest. Pace is key. It's also going to be a million degrees I'm sure. For those not quite up to that distance yet, you can do 10-12.

Make it Drip Drip

I didn't post this yesterday because two posts stole the Monday morning thunder and I didn't want to bump them down right away.

The BRRC 10 mile relay seemed to be a pretty sweet event. You can read about it here at Running Maryland's website. There is a video, and they even have splits, conveniently for just about all of our friends. Jubb and Stas averaged under 5's for their race and ran some pretty evil negative splitting, winning the event in 49:28. Less than 3 minutes later came Kip and Denise, and a minute + after them was Berardi. Other competitors included a very hungover Terence Baptiste, Matt Augustin and Louis Fodos (who works at the store as well).

Cheese did a race this weekend, a 5k in Baldwin Park called the Pride of the Valley 5k. Cheese ran the amazing time of 15:58. However, this was only good enough for 18th overall as the winner was 14:25. Looking at the names and you can definitely tell you're in somewhat Southern California. Fortunately, Ed's name blends right in. Awesome job dude, we'll be looking for a sweet result out of you on 9/13 at the Chicago Half!

This week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week, though, really lived up to the honor. I knew Chris Belcher was racing the Hadassah Check It Out Challenge 5k in Hunt Valley (which I thought used to be run in Patt Park). He won this event in the pedestrian time of 17:08. Since he won by :26, I figured he just put it into cruise control once he had the win locked up. The win alone, combined with his summer of great racing, won him the PDAW. Then on Monday morning he tells me he ran some random Trail 5k on Saturday, taking 3rd. Apparently it was super long (no surprise as it was on the trail) so he shut it down in anticipation of Sunday's race. Two races, one win, and moving back to Louisville for med school is a pretty sweet way to end your time in Baltimore.

The week ahead also seems pretty quiet, with only a few known events. Collin's at a 50 miler, a few might take on the Leesburg 10k in VA, and there is the final track meet in the BRRC Summer Track Series on Wednesday.

Here is the Tuesday Night Track workout for all of you who were confused by the email. Interval followed by (recovery time) in parentheses:

1200 (2:20), 1100 (2:10), 1000 (2:00), 900 (1:50), 800 (1:40), 700 (1:30), 600 (1:20), 500 (1:10), 400 (1:00), 300 (1:00), 200 (1:00), 3x1oo striders

This is an 8000m workout, so a fairly long one. For those of you not quite yet at the 8k mark, we'll have you cut 200m off each interval, or skip a few entirely, so you're not running the whole thing. As far as the pace, with the recovery becoming less and less each time, this is another workout whose intention is proper pacing. In your head you're thinking "sweet, just a little downward ladder I can get faster along the way" but really your body will be screaming for oxygen.

The first few repeats will likely feel very easy, but the pace should be something akin to 10k pace. So on 5:20 it would be something like 4:00, 3:40, 3:20, 3:00, 2:40, 2:20, 2:00, 1:40, 1:20, 1:00, :40. Towards the end of the workout, the 400m and below, the idea is really just opening up the stride a little bit. The striders at the end are untimed and on your own rest interval.

Course Run Saturday

Baltimore Marathon Course Run
Saturday, July 25th
7:00am SHARP
Baltimore Visitor's Center, Inner Harbor

You can run as many miles as you'd like, the course run is supported by FALLS ROAD. I bet even if you aren't running that they could use some help manning the water stops.

Rather than me post their race reports, why don't you just read them for yourself for Brian Godsey's 5000m at Heusden and Ben Ingram's Great Lakes Relay. Both sound like awesome experiences.

David Ploskonka was also in action this past weekend at the Vermont 100 miler. From his report it sounds like it was a tough day for him, but to man up and make it through when you're not having a great day makes you a boss.

ALSO - while August is a pretty dead month in terms of big events, there are some things to whet your appetite prior to the fall racing season. NCOTB appears to be unable to do 2pers/10mi relay on 8.2.09 so if anybody wants to do that, let's chat at track tonight. I posted a couple other events on the right hand side, many are BRRC events which means low cost and low key.