On a Tuesday

The first post of 2015!

After the hustle and bustle of mid December, it really gets quiet. There aren't a ton of races around Christmas, and even if there were, most people are a little preoccupied. For us, we fill the time with our favorite Christmas tradition: the #TWSSChristmas photo contest!

Click here to see the gallery

It's always fun to see how folks are spending their Christmases, running or not, and we had a lot of submissions this year. Naturally, it appears as though hardly anyone voted, which means they either didn't care to or didn't know how to. I'll declare a winner this week.

My trip home to New Jersey was pretty balmy, enough so that I was able to make it into the chilly Atlantic Ocean following each of my 3 runs. The 3rd was part of the Polar Bear 5k in Asbury Park. I could hardly believe it had been 4 years since I last did this year, but indeed it was December of 2010 that I last ran it. It was still a 5 miler back then, although race day featured an incredible Nor'easter that shortened the race to a 5k. The sea looked angry that day and I made the decision to not go in.

This year was much milder and after my amazing 19:11 5k (gun time, 9th place) in which Conrad basically lapped me (3rd, 17:44, after stopping and waiting for me at the turnaround), he and I ran into the ocean and dunked ourselves. Not to be outdone, Amy and my little sister, Meghan, accepted the challenge and also went in the water after the race. For their terrific race AND getting in the water, they each earned a share of the final Purple Drink Athlete of the Week of 2014.

That brought us to the final week of the year, split between 2014 and 2015. In 2014's waning moments, Erik T. Orberg recorded the last race result - an 8th place at the Vienna Silvesterlauf (5.33km) race in Austria. A couple spots and 12 seconds faster than 2013!

A number of people kicked off the new year in style:

At the Resolution Run 5k in Patterson Park, Justine DiGregorio took the team's first win, Jen Sheely was 6th and Karen Menge laced up her shoes and did her first race in who-knows-how-long.

Down in MoCo, Conrad Laskowski was 4th at the New Year's Day 5k, while Andy Sovonick made a return to running and Tom Stott picked up where he left off at the end of the year.

On New Year's Day we also bid adieu to our dear friend Brennan, who, after 7.5 years in Baltimore, moved to Milwaukee to begin a new job with the Brewers. It was a sad day and he will be missed, but his spirit lives on every time you make a memory. Or send a text.

In a year that was truly full circle, I was glad I was able to spend New Year's Eve with the same crew as last year (Brennan, Zero and my brother) when we went up to New York for the Central Park Midnight 4 miler.

Over the weekend there was a heated battle at the Frozen 5k in Virginia, featuring Team HPB athletes Alyssa Godesky and Leslie DiMichele. Alyssa fought bravely for the win, but in the end Leslie's final move proved enough for the win (19:27 to 19:34). Stephanie Granlund also raced, starting the year with a strong 28:11.

Earning our first PDAW of the year was Karen Menge - it's unnerving sometimes to jump in a race after a long hiatus, but we respect the gumption of getting back out there!

TWSS Christmas 2k13

No races to report. We awarded the last Purple Drink Athlete of the Week of 2013 to A-Aron Rodgers because, well, he deserved it. He also won the KC Masterpiece Award for coming through in the clutch.

Here is a link to the #TWSSChristmas photo album! I think you need to have a Google Plus profile in order to +1 the photos (which is how I'll count votes) but if you don't have one just comment on this blog post with your favorites.

TWSS Christmas

We Are the People

While most of last week's races took place ON New Year's Day, Collin Anderson did win a low key 5k in Utah over the weekend. He was upset about having no competition, until he found out all the stuff he was going home with - including a massage, literally sparkling purple drink, and an unlimited pass to what sounds like the most fun place on earth.

But, it wasn't enough to upseat Melissa Majumdar from winning the first Purple Drink Athlete of the Week of 2013! Melissa got the win on Tuesday at the Resolution Run in just her 2nd race back following her racing hiatus.

With 4 people notching W's in the first week, we are off to a great start. Let's keep the momentum rolling! I hear that the group runs are thriving and many people are showing up and putting in some serious work.

We did have one competition whose winner had not yet been determined, and after allowing votes for quite a while, I get to declare a tie in the #TWSSChristmas photo contest. With an equal number of votes each (6), the winners are Carly Page and Christa Wagner. Brennan Feldhausen and his family came in a close 2nd with 5 votes. Here are the winning images:

Carly and her bro run on a snowy road

Christa poses with her new vest

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

It seemed as though everyone had a merry little Christmas, and with no races over the weekend I awarded the Purple Drink Athlete of the Week to Patty Stott, whose amazing performance at Celtic Solstice I forgot to mention in last week's digest. As we found out last year there is basically one race in America on Christmas Day - the Joyful 5k in Minnesota (Ed won it last year). So even this week will be light.

I was excited to see how everyone was celebrating, and once again opened the #TWSSChristmas for photo submissions. There were some great pics of runs and various winter wonderlands, and we'll determine the winner by YOUR votes! I put all of the photos into a Google+ album, so all you have to do is click on the link below and look through the album. Voting is simple: on each picture is a little +1 button, and the picture with the most +1's will be declared the winner. I'm not sure what kind of window I'm going to give yet because I know many of you may not see this for a few days and then it's New Year's, so I'll give it a week maybe.

TWSS Christmas 2012

Your Mom Reads the Blog

And I'm not even kidding. 

What a GREAT showing of Winter Track Warriors last night, although, with mild weather conditions, it really wasn't too bad.  Too people, Cheese and RM, even went shirtless.  Many, many wet butts though.

This little post will contain a few tidbits of information.  First and foremost, by virtue of racing on Christmas Day, notching a win, and setting a Course Record at the Biggest Christmas Day 5k in the US, Ed Aramayo was our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week.  Ed won the Joyful 5k (untimed) in Minnesota in 16:30.  The race could potentially be the only race run on Christmas Day anywhere.  I guess you could say Ed was really "Joyful and Triumphant" - get it?  That's a little O Come All Ye Faithful humor for you.

But the fun part of the day was watching the tweets come in with the hashtag #TWSSChristmas.  It was a great way to keep us all connected over the weekend and see where everyone was, and what they were doing.  As mentioned in the email, THIS week's PDAW is going to be awarded to the popular vote winner for the photo submission contest.  The voting will be open until Saturday, and it will be the last PDAW of 2011.  January 1 races will count towards the first full week of 2012. 

Of course, I have received no votes yet, so I may have to take my 4 or 5 favorites and put them in a poll and see if that works better for voting.  Otherwise I'll just have to do it myself.  Sigh.

There will be a New Year's Day "Hangover" Run, this Sunday starting from Gilman.  We have tentatively awarded a start time of 11am, so unless there is a compelling reason to adjust that time, we will stick to it with probably a 90 minute run (with optional 2 hour as Dusty/myself are going 2).  This will enable anyone who watches NFL to get back in time for games.  Apres run we will likely patronize a food establishment of some kind. 

We haven't finalized plans for NYE Run, but will likely start in the more downishtown vicinity, afternoon, maybe an hour run or so.  Chill.

Here is the link to the TWSS Christmas Photo Album, cast your votes!

TWSS Christmas 2011