Terps Highlight Terps Twilight

With many teams heading to conference meets this weekend, the Jim Kehoe Twilight Meet was basically Terps vs Unattached. Now in its 4th year, it was another great evening of racing around the oval, with calm, slightly humid conditions leading to some great performances.

In the Jim Kehoe Men's 800m, Greg Jubb absolutely lit up the track, winning in 1:50.60 on even splits of 55. Incredible race for Greg, who now may extend his season to the Swarthmore Tuppeny Twilight in two Mondays. Louis Foudos was disappointed to not crack 2, instead finishing at 2:01.74. GRC's Chuck Kascur ran a terrific 1:54.08, and Ryan Witters was right behind in 1:54.37.

Next up was the 1500m, where Chris Snyder had his best race of the season, breaking 4 (3:59.74). Tristram Thomas ran another consistent race, crossing in 4:00.47. In heat 2, Tim Burns and Arjun Majumdar both looked a little tired, running 4:14.03 and 4:22.77, respectively. In GRC action, Jason Myers (4:01.52), Sam Boimov (4:05.04) and Dave Wertz, the ageless one, came across in 4:08.62.

Of course the evening's marquee event was the Charles Torpey Maryland Alumni Mile, and this year's race featured an awesome field. There were a few late scratches, but a couple of last minute entries buoyed the field. The pace was slow to start, with the leaders passing 809m in just about 2:30. Then Conrad Laskowski went into OD and became the first two-time champ, defending his 2011 title in about the same time as last year (4:46.46). Dougie, who is even more jacked than usual, ran 4:54. After being sick for the past week and change, Tom Stott just didn't have it in him, and finished at 5:09.63. I got passed by Danielle Siebert in the last 150m, finishing in my 3rd slowest time in my 4 attempts at this race. Greg Jubb, dressed incognito, crossed in 5:42.75. Denise Knickman was the 3rd woman, breaking 6 (5:59.01).

We'd like to thank the University of Maryland Track and Field team for once again hosting an awesome event, particularly Danielle Siebert for her efforts in organizing the Alumni Mile. Don't forget, while the team's future looks not as bleak as it did a few months ago, there is still a lot of work to accomplish in order to #saveumdXCandTrack - so keep pledging your support!

Get Faded

There was more fading going on at Saturday's Terrapin Invitational at the PG Sports and Learning Complex than Kid and Play's haircuts...

The morning's first event was the 5000m, which saw Tristram Thomas take a brief stab at the lead, bringing the field through 1600m in 4:49, before slowing down to hit 3200 at 10:00, and ultimately finish 10th at 15:53.16. 

The mile was up around noon, and Arjun Majumdar, racing in his first indoor race since March 2008, ran a fairly even split 4:46.28.  In the next heat, Ed Aramayo was in a battle for position from the gun.  He came through the half (809m) in 2:11.5, which had him in a good spot to challenge his 4:23 from last year's Terrapin Invite.  Unfortunately, a brief mental lapse around the 3/4 mark saw his split slip a little, and he finished up at 4:28.62 for 12th.  Chris Snyder, who ran a 4:40 1600 just two weeks ago at the PG Meet, apparently gets into shape real quick, as he finished 3rd in 4:21.76.

Later in the day, after I left, Greg Jubb took 3rd in the 800 with a 1:56.50, and Louis Foudos ran 2:06.50 for 35th. In the 3000m, Liz Laseter finished 4th in 10:34.31. 

Somewhere on the ultra circuit, Dave Ploskonka finished 2nd at the winter edition of the Beast of Burden 100 miler.  In the summer version of 2010, Dave won and ran a PR of 16h19m.  This weekend, with a snow covered path, he ran 17h20m.  The winner was an astounding 14h56m or something insane. 

Out in sunny Carlsbad, California, Andy Gell ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon (a race we've been talking about going out to!) in 1:33:09 to finish 198th.

With a great race on Saturday, this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week honor is going to Chris Snyder.  20 seconds in two weeks?  One way to assure yourself a PDAW is to set the bar low and then rise above it!

We had an awesome showing yesterday on the Club Challenge course - 22 people did some kind of workout, which was run in 26 degree temps.  Very chilly in the hills of Columbia. 

We're on the track tomorrow at 6:30 (warmup) and there will inevitably be a zillion different workouts so you can figure out what you want to do tomorrow.  I know Dustin is doing 40 minute tempo starting at 5:40/mi and working down to 5:20/mi.  He plans on arriving at 6:15 to do a 30 minute warmup and then starting his workout around 6:50pm.  So if you usually work out with Dustin, plan accordingly.  I am going to start getting back into running again, so I'll be starting with something light, perhaps 2-3 miles of 200 on/200 off a la Brennan's "workout" last week.

Seriously, are they Black Simon and Garfunkel?

Save Maryland XC and Track!

Since this has wearing on me today, I'm going to keep putting the word out there for all to see. 

In the event you were unaware, the University of Maryland is likely going to be cutting men's cross country and track and field, along with other programs, effective July 2012, due to budgetary concerns.  The school's athletic department is operating in a huge deficit right now, and they have decided that the relatively minimal amounts to fund these teams is going to make some kind of difference in the long run. 

If you've been following on Twitter or Facebook, you might have seen this today (probably by me) - but there is a group on FB "Save Maryland Men's XC/Track and Field" and the appropriate hashtag has been #saveumdxcandtrack.  Whether you went to Maryland or not, or whether you ran in college or not, I'm sure you can at the very least empathize with those who will be affected.  Running, for most of us, is a hobby.  None of us expects to earn a living at it, we do it because we love to compete.  At Maryland, that's all these kids are doing it for.  They don't have scholarships, they are barely funded.  They keep a skeleton crew for the cross country team, and the track team is among the smallest I've ever seen for a big university.  But this is a team with a great history in track and field, and it would be extremely sad for me to see this team just vanish.  It would be like a part of me, personally, never existed.

There's really not a whole lot we can do, unless anybody knows of any talent contests where the first prize is $57 million dollars, but helping spread the word is always appreciated. 

I know we have a lot of Terp alums within our group, some of whom ran, such as myself, Denise, Bobby Van Allen, Conrad, Erik Westlund, Andy Gell, Mike Prada, Dan Miranda, Alex Waldt (who is there now), guys like Matt Adami, Matt Sanders, Adam Forgione, some of our GRC friends like Pat Reaves, Danielle Siebert (who coaches there currently), and I'm sure that list goes on.  Many of us have gone to the UMD indoor and outdoor meets, including everybody's favorite, the MD Twilight Meet featuring the Alumni Mile.  Some of you have accompanied me for runs at Greenbelt or from CP to DC, and dined at the Bagel Place afterwards. 

That's all I wanted to say, I appreciate having the ability to do so in this forum.  Keep the faith, keep running!

Tracksters Off to Good Start At Maryland Invite

Preliminary results:

Tristram Thomas, 3:59.66
Ed Aramayo, 4:00.36
Arjun Majumdar, 4:13.4

In cycling news, Pat exacts revenge on Frederick, stays upright on bike.

Down in CP the meet is still going on, the 800m is up next for the guys.  I'll update later.

Make Your Picks

If you haven't already done so and are PLANNING on participating in the ESPN.com NCAA Tourney Challenge, make sure you make your selections by 11:00am tomorrow morning.

The name of the group is "Terps in 2010"

Games start at noon. Best 2 days of the year. 32 games between Thursday and Friday.