Surf City, USA

Besides the Matchbox 20k "race" we held over the weekend, we did actually have people racing.

Nicole Wilson ran a 3:03:53 at the Columbus Marathon back in October, at the time a personal best. She didn't take much of a break after that, going onto run a 1:23 half in mid December. Nicole's goal was the Surf City Marathon on February 1st, an unusual time of year for East Coast runners to look to peak.

Her training paid off on Sunday in a big way - not only did she finish 2nd, but she ran a 2:54:34! A 9+ minute PR, and it landed her at #5 on our Top Ten list!

As if there was going to be any competition, she easily earned this week's Purple Drink Athlete of the Week.

Interestingly, the DiGregorios also chose the Surf City race for a family race-cation. Meg D ran 1:27:19 and Justine, in what may have been her first half (at least to my knowledge) ran a 1:32:33. Then I'm sure they got more than a full day's supply of Vitamin D.

Tom Stott ran the Country Roads 5M in MoCo, finishing 19th in 32:24.

Meanwhile, at Sunday's Katy Perry concert, this happened:

Left Shark looks quizzically as Katy Perry makes a hand gesture

super(bowl) long run

NOTICE TIME CHANGE, SO RYAN STOPS WHINING.

sunday, 2/5
patapsco rolling road pull-off
8AM roll-out for a 15-mile get-up

sport your team colors
maybe tom will bring his baby football on the run and someone can get hurt playing with it during the run

let me know if we should expect you
discuss in comments if you're running further and starting early or late

roll tide

Welcome to Earth

Indoor 2k11 continues to exceed expectations...

Tristram Thomas set a new team indoor 5000m record of 15:30.59 while finishing 4th at the Keogh Invitational at Haverford. A short while later he finished 16th in the mile at 4:33.85. That's a terrific double. Alex Battaglino finished 3rd in the mile in a season best 4:26.48.

At the Superbowl 5k in Dundalk, Tom Stott kicked his season off with a 13th place finish in 18:00.5.

As mentioned in the email, there were some other great performances this weekend:

Dejen Gebremeskel won the 3000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston...with one shoe. He got flat tired at the start, and ran the entire race a la Shoeless Joe Jackson. It looked unlikely that he'd be able to compete if the race came down to a kick, but it didn't seem to even faze him as he accelerated at the end of the race.

Alan Webb got back into the mix, finishing just outside of 4 minutes in the mile. Below I shall post a link to his pre-race interview. It's long, but if you want to hear a nice shoutout, go to 5 minute mark and watch from there. High schooler Lukas Verzbicas had an awesome race, running 4:03.88 and finishing ahead of Olympian Leo Manzano.

The Green Bay Packers performed superbly, thanks to Brennan, in their winning effort at Super Bowl XLV. MVP Aaron Rodgers, after the game, credited Brennan with the victory, citing "out of the 80+ thousand fans in the stadium, during each play, I could pick out Brennan's [voice] from the crowd. It was nice to see him out there, as he has been such a pivotal member of our squad. Also, I'd like to thank his mom for making the whole team chili last week before we left Green Bay, it was really good and it gave me the energy I needed to play so well. This championship belt move goes out to the Feldy clan!"

While there were many great performances this weekend, only one could be our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week, and Tristram's 15:30 5000m was good enough to earn the award this week!

And now, here's the link to the Webb video

Congratulations Kris and Donna!

This just in...

Vivenne Ara Simms was born just after 5 in the afternoon on Sunday, February 7 to happy parents Kris and Donna.

No word on which heritage she will claim just yet in order to get into a good preschool, but since February is Black History Monf I would guess "African American."

Congrats you two!

Now which of you gamblers had Super Bowl Sunday in the baby pool??