2016 Westminster Main Street Mile Results

Westminster, MD (April 13) - Once again Falls Road made the mid-week trip out to Westminster for the fastest road race around, the Main Street Mile. Featuring 144 feet of elevation drop from start to finish, racers are all but assured fast times, regardless of their current fitness.

Andy Weaver was racing his first MSM, and was taken aback by how fast the field darted down the opening hill. It took him a little while to reel back the leader, but he made his pass with less than a quarter mile to go and put daylight in between him and the runner-up. Andy's time of 4:02.27 ranks 4th now behind Greg Jubb (3:59) and Ed Aramayo (4:00; 4:01). Impressive run from the second place finisher at 4:04! 

We swept the women's podium, with Megan DiGregorio running her fastest race here (4:46.50) taking the title. Emily Gispert, in her first MSM, was 2nd at 4:55 and Amy Horst ran her best time here at 5:02 for 3rd. Following the race, Emily, Amy and Andy ran over to the McDaniel Track to finish their workouts on the track.

Other notable performances: Thom Ripley had arguably the race of the night, running a 4:43 in his first ever mile race. Thom runs downhill really well, apparently, and blew past Meg D with 200m to go. Jon Miller and PJ Anderer were consistent as ever, and Bryn Burkholder ran her first MSM with a 5:48. 

Graham won the race to the ice cream this year, finishing his ice cream sandwich as most were just running up to get them. This was the 6th year we've sent a team to the race, and conditions were mostly perfect. Wind was light, and not in runners' faces (like 2015) and the temperature was in the mid 50s at 7:00pm. 

Full Results

It's Going Down For Real

For the 5th straight year, a group of us headed out to Westminster after work on a Wednesday evening in April to run a mile, downhill, as fast as we could.

The Westminster Main Street Mile became an immediate team-favorite and over the years we've seen some massively impressive performances from the likes of Ed, Jubb, Berdan, Diane, and others. Last year just 4 of us made the trip and this year, which yielded the slowest winning time in the years we've been going. This year would be even slower.

Indeed, when your team consists of 3 slow dragons, a kid who just ran the marathon of the century 2 days earlier, and three others dealing with minor injuries, you can't expect to light the streets up. Add in a stiff headwind and a weak field and poof - you have a high school kid winning the race in 4:26.

But what you can always count on with this group is a fun time, hard effort, and being the first to consume our ice cream sandwiches after the race.

Snake Hill Bandits enjoying their post-race ice cream sandwiches

So here's how the evening went:

Graham and Christa rode the Metro to Owings Mills. Props to both of them, especially Christa, who rode it end-to-end. In all my years I believe Brennan is the only one who's done that. Me and Bish met them in OM, and we drove through some rain out 140 to Westminster. The sun came back out and dried up the roads, but it was definitely a cool night, and we saw that we'd have a headwind in the race.

We met Jon, PJ, and Meg D, and warmed up - as a team - around the McDaniel campus. A quick stop at the cars and we were off, up the hill, to the start. Up there we saw former Falls Road employee, Rory Jenkins, who just happened to be home. The initial drop is pretty steep, which is where I hobble down the hill and watch the race unfold. I had a good view of the women's race. Susan Hendrick of GRC took it out hard, a tactic that worked for the win, as the distance that Meg D had to try and close was just not manageable. Susan took the W in 4:51, with Meg D in 2nd at 4:57. Christa was just off her time from last year, taking 3rd in 5:09. At the awards, they announced that a Kyle Grimm, alleged 27 year old female, had won the race. We (I) stomped up to Nut Hall and said there was no way unless Kyle was pulling a Bruce Jenner that was the case. Upon video review, results were adjusted.

Since I get dropped like one of the cluster flies in my house from the initial downhill, I can't really see what's going on up front, but after the race we heard Rory finished 2nd to the high schooler, in the slowest winning time since prior to 2011. In 3rd was Timothy Snyder, from Frederick. Our first finisher was Steve "Bish" Febish, in 6th at 4:37. Graham, who trotted down the hill and, despite marathon soreness, could easily have gone faster, ran 4:47. Jon ran 5:01 and PJ finished at 5:04, before yours truly huffed and puffed across the line in 5:08 - the same time I ran last year. Graham and I then hustled over to the gym to be the first ones to get our ice cream sandwiches, which we consumed before anyone else even got there.

Then it was awards time, and with Meg D and Christa generating positive cash flow, it was a pretty good day already. Febish and Graham were 2nd and 3rd in their respective age group so they got medals (although technically Kyle Grimm should have then bumped Graham, but we're taking him out of the equation for foolishly saying he was a girl). Then it was the best category, Men 30-39, which we swept.

Thug Life

Before we left we each had another ice cream sandwich, then Graham dunked a piece of paper on a 10 foot rim. We got back to Canton where we had a late-night dining session at La Tolteca, which I paid for the next day.

For next year I hope more of you come out. I've got to say, it was more fun when we had a ton of people there and everybody did fun things and was cool. There's not a lot of that going on these days. C'mon people, loosen up!

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!

Cashin' Out

Last week will be known as Katy Perry Week (get it - Hot and Cold?). With temps in the 80s on Monday, then 50 and rainy on Wednesday, then in the 80s again Saturday, before 40s and rain on Sunday, it was just not a fun week. But, that didn't mean it was a slow week, as we all know what happened at Wednesday's #MSM.

On the track, Louis Foudos ran a lifetime best for 800m at the McDaniel Twilight Meet (2:00.94), Tristram Thomas ran a season best 3:56.67 1500m at Princeton's Ellis Invite on Friday night (he almost didn't make it), and Tim Burns ran a 4:09.09 1500m at Widener Invite on Saturday. That was a 3 second improvement for Tim over his season best. Out in Oregon, Matt Jablonski ran a 3:57 1500 at their meet.

Saturday, the nice day of the weekend, also hosted some road races. Megan DiGregorio snuck an easy win at the 3.43 mile Hills of Milltown 5k, taking home some dollars. In Patterson Park, Andrew Jacobson finished 3rd in 17:46 at the Victim's Fund Run 5k, with Terry Decker in 4th at 18:10. Denise Knickman claimed another scalp, winning in 19:55.

Sunday's Mulligan Metric Marathon decided IT needed a mulligan, postponing to this coming weekend on account of the anticipated bad weather and its potential hazards on the Gwynns Falls Trail. That didn't stop 18 people from running the course as a fun run! Meg McNew ran the Rutgers UNITE 13.1 race in New Brunswick, taking 3rd in 1:24:01 - an 87 second PR! It seems as if the word got out that there was money on the line, as the men's top 3 were under 1:09 (including winner Demesse Teferra). Hirut Mandefro also sniffed it out, winning probably somewhat easily in about 1:20.

It was one of the tough weeks for deciding a Purple Drink Athlete of the Week. With so many people competing in the Main Street Mile, plus some great track performances, and a big half marathon PR, it was a very close call, but in the end, this week favored the elderly. Kris Simms, who turned 40 just a week ago, won his first masters' race, and took 8 seconds out of his 2011 Main Street Mile time on a slippery day. He ran a 4:27, pretty darn fast, and I expect to see him take Masters by storm.

Other Things

Lots of races this weekend. If you're staying local, we've got Operation Oliver 5k on Saturday on the east side, and Port to Fort 5k on Sunday on Key Hwy. Additionally, Mulligan Metric Marathon will be held Sunday, and of course, Pike's Peek 10k down in Rockville is Sunday.

If you missed The Runaround tonight on ESPN Radio, you missed a good one! We talked about yesterday's London Marathon, Mt. SAC, and talked with Jason Hartmann, 4th at Boston last week (1st American). You can listen to today's show here.

I forgot to shout this out already, but Emily Hurley's cousins started an apparel company called TWIFT Athletics. They make fun racing stuff for triathletes, etc. Check it out!

Finally, Dusty posted this article from Running Times, it's a few pages, but a good read.