Can't Nobody Do It Better

All this indoor track reminds me of 2008!  Sadly, it was a return to the PG Sportsplex for Ed Aramayo, Chris Snyder, and Arjun Majumdar, on Saturday, to waste their day watching little kids run 400m races for 3 hours.  Yes, 3 hours of quarter miles.  Ed set the tempo in the mile, before stepping aside to allow the other two to go through.  Chris took the W in 4:36, Arjun was 2nd in a season best 4:40, and Ed rounded out the top 3 in 4:42.  Later, in the 800, Arjun took the job of pacesetter for Ed, bringing him through the 400 in under 60 seconds.  Ed ran even splits of 29.x, 30.x, 30.x and 30.x, but finished just outside of 2:00.

Saturday morning was the Du Charme Invitational at Dickinson, where the competition was about as stiff as a good Frosh/Soph meet in NJ circa 1996.  Becky Parks was doing her coaching duties when she decided to run the 5000m, an event nobody on her team was entered in.  Becky ran amazingly even splits of 6:16, 6:16, 6:18, and cruised into 3rd place at 19:37.70.

Saturday's road event was the re-re-rescheduled Lewis Memorial 10 Mile prediction run out in Frederick, where PJ Anderer ran 1:15:47 to finish 16th.

On Sunday, sneaky Meg McNew cherrypicked a nice little victory at the Nobles Mill 5 Miler, a RASAC event in Harford County.  Her time is solid though, 36:25, so she should be pleased.  She's also running a ghastly amount of miles lately.

The Howard County Striders held their annual Penguin Pace 5k on Sunday in chilly conditions.  The route is expectedly hilly, but that didn't stop a sell-out number of runners from competing.  Joel Gladfelter found himself in 2nd place to the multiple-race-per-weekend Karsten Brown.  Joel ran 18:13, it left him feeling kind of "meh."  In the women's race, Christa Wagner took 5th in 20:43, faster than she ran at Baltimore 5k in the fall, and seems to be fired up now for Club Challenge.  I can't wait!

Our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week went to Arjun for his terrific mile race and rabbiting duties, while Ed earned the NOS Button Award for punching it at the right time.

Tonight we'll be at the track, and it's another beaut of a day.  I have a suggested main workout of a fartlek run, starting at 1 minute, building up to 5, coming back down, in one minute increments.  The total of tempo running will be 24 minutes, with a minute recovery in between each effort.  Alex will be doing 400 on/400 off, Tristram is doing 10-8-6-6-4-4 or something like that.  Dusty is doing his workout tomorrow, as are Ed and Arjun.

Party Like it's 2012

Remember that song that came out at the end of 2010?  Nikki Minaj was on it.  Did their label just not realize that 2012 was a year away?  Did not hear that song ONCE this year. 

Anyway, there was a lot of running going on as we left 2011 and said hello to 2012:

Brennan Feldhausen ran the Run into the New Year 5k in Milwaukee, with his sisters in tow.  He felt that the race distance was accurate, but the mile markers were not, as he hit 3 miles in 16:30, but didn't finish until 18:11.  That's an RM style last 0.1. 

In York, PA, Stacie Wentz, who seriously never races, ran the Double Deuce, a 2 mile run that starts at 11:45pm.  She didn't get to the finish by midnight, but her unofficial time of 16:24 would be a team 2 Mile record (road)!  But rules are rules and I need to see official times for it to be ratified.  Stacie technically was the first race finisher of 2012 that means. 

Collin Anderson did some 24 hour Run Through the Years in AZ, where he ran 100k and then called it a day.  Then he texted "I ran 63 miles yesterday and now I'm rdrukn."

Our 2nd Annual NYE Run had a terrific showing of something like 15 or 17 people, I couldn't believe it!  Meeting at 2pm from THE Washington Monument (yes, that's right, Baltimore had it first), we took a scenic trip along the Jones Falls, through Clipper Mill, up into Druid Hill Park and down through Hopkins. 

The next morning was a whole new year, which meant clean slate Top 10 lists.  Dan Miranda set a great early mark for the 5k, running 16:44 in a 3rd place effort at the Resolution Run 5k.  Jack Flowers was 5th in 17:25, and Joel Gladfelter rounded out the top 10 in 18:30.  On the ladies side, Christine Trzcinski took 3rd in 21:42, Emily Keyes ran 23:16, and Karen Menge, getting her 2012 goals cracking, 23:46.

At the BRRC Father Time Frolic 5 Miler (Prediction Run), Tristram Thomas unsuccessfully predicted that he would run 37:30.  He got to the line, knew he was quick, jogged around a little, but still finished in 35:39.  His miscue landed him in 41st place. 

I found a few other results from 1/1/12, including Luke Belford's 5th place finish at the RASAC New Year's Day 10k (37:53) and results from the Winfield Mile, where Ryan Stasiowski won in 4:47.10 and Louis Foudos won some oreos, running 5:14.80.

Meanwhile, our Sunday Long Run group consisted of myself, Dusty, Nate, Seth, and Conrad, who drove up from Bethesda following a late night 007-themed party.  Boss.

Our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week was for the 6-day week ending 12/31, and I took into account the voting that took place in the TWSS Christmas picture contest.  It was a tie, 4 votes apiece, for Joel and Brennan, so the tiebreak went to Brennan for racing on Saturday.  It was Brennan's first PDAW of 2011, and our last.  This week will include races from 1/1. 

Most impressive, perhaps, was the 18 person showing at the first track workout of the new year (it was 18, not 17, Tristram was right).  With temperatures barely clipping 23 degrees, and a wind chill far, far below that, I was impressed by the showing.  Truly, Winter Track Warriors. 

Tristram and Tim Burns are looking to head down to PG on Sunday for a track meet.  The BRRC Frozen Finger 5M is on Saturday.  Sunday Long Run will be in effect, and I hear a group of girls will be going this week so there will be lots of people to run with!