Turkey Trot Roundup

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a quick roundup of local Turkey Trot results:

Alexandria Turkey Trot 5 Miler:
* Megan Haberle sets a NEW CLUB RECORD (beating her previous record by 6 seconds at the same race last year), finishing 10th among women, running 30:29.
* Rachel Clattenburg cruised the race as a "easy-fast" workout, running the first half easy and the last half hard.  Ends up running a solid time, running 31:44, finishing 15th among women. Rachel also earns yet another spot on the Club Records list.
* Also of note: Drew Killian ran a very quick race, finishing 35th overall with a 29:12.

SOME Trot for Hunger 5K:
* Jeff Redfern tunes up for Club Nationals by finishing 4th overall (16:20) at the SOME Trot for Hunger 5k this morning.

Weekend Racing Roundup - JFK, Philly

Quick updates for November 22-23

JFK 50 Miler:

Daniel Yi - 6:18, 7th overall. See here for race racap.
Matt Wieczorek - 8:10, 89th overall. A big 50 mile PR for Matt, who won a 50K earlier this year. Matt took more than 15 minutes off his previous JFK best. One tough dude.
Miguel Perez - 8:36, 135th overall. What a gamer. Runs two marathons (and two PRs) this season, then throws in a 50 miler. Unreal!

Philadelphia Marathon:

Jenny Paul - 3:08, 59th woman. Jenny runs a 4 minute PR, topping her performance from just a few weeks ago at Marine Corps. Jenny's been on a big roll all season, running impressive times in every race she's done. She's becoming a fixture among DC's fastest women!
Edward Dudlik - 3:28, 1460 overall. Edward makes his debut in a Dojo singlet, putting up his second fastest time ever. And if I do say so myself, looked quite sharp doing it.
Taylor Williamson - 2:56, 215 overall. Taylor manages a heck of a solid time after managing an Achilles problem for the season.

Megan, Shawn, and Alan all ran a 5k Saturday morning. I'm still hunting down the results, but can report that Megan and Shawn made it a Dojo sweep at the top, winning the women's and men's titles.

Big weekend all around!

UPDATE (11/26):
Thanks to Jenny, we found the 5k results. At the Cranberry Crawl 5k, Shawn takes the overall win in 16:34. Megan comes in 11th overall and first woman with an 18:58. Alan wins his age group with a 19:39, and friend of Dojo Cindy Conant wins her age group as well with a 19:48.

JFK 50 Recap

First off, a huge thanks to the many people who played such a big role in the Dojo JFK 50 Mile races today. Running is an individual sport, but our performances and accomplishments are the product of so many people's efforts. In my case:

* Alan's sage training advice,
* Teammates Brian, Miguel, and Matt, who exemplify toughness and, well, craziness,
* A Dojo cheering and pit crew (Rachel, Chris, Drew, Farah, Shawn, Alan, Miriam) at JFK that was by far the envy of the field,
* Workouts with the growing legions of Dojo,
* Drew, Jim, Rachel, Pruitt, Brian, Matt, and others prodding me along during countless long runs,
* Rob Gillanders' efforts to keep me patched together for the past couple months (mainly because of those aforementioned countless long runs, haha)
* Brian's willingness to trek all the way up to Boonsboro on weekends so we could scout the course,
* Virtual supporters who were following the race with rapt attention, and,
* Of course, Jen, who drove like a maniac to every crew spot to provide feed bags, tolerated my spending an unreasonable amount of time training for months, and kept me going today when things got really really bad (oh boy, did they).

As a training group, we probably understand certain aspects of each other more than even our closest family and friends. We know how much work each of us puts in to accomplish goals others might think are arbitrary or even irrational. We can appreciate how satisfying a good race can feel. We can commiserate when a random act of bad luck (flu, rain, food poisoning, you name it) derails months of work. We understand that it probably doesn't make sense to send a long string of texts to someone about Thanksgiving plans at 11 PM the night before their big race. Not only do we get the 5 AM wake-up time to go run, we join you for that run! For all of that, its times like this that make me want to thank all of you for being part of the Dojo community.

Anyway, on to the race.

.US 12K Nationals Race Results

Quick updates:

Josh Sohn sets a new club record in the 12K with a very impressive 41:07 (or 5:31/mile) this morning in Alexandria. 

Jeff Redfern keeps a strong season going with a 4:51 road mile, good for fourth overall.

All the results here: http://www.national12k.us/Results.aspx

Richmond Marathon Results

RYAN JOHNSON!!!! 2:35:58!!! 10th overall!!! When you see a guy who grinds away, putting in the miles, knocking out workouts with workman-like consistency, and then he runs a huge (12 minute?) PR, it restores a bit of my faith that the universe will sometimes reward hard work and dedication.

Miguel Perez is kind of a maniac. He PR'ed at Marine Corps, came out the very next week for speedwork, and then just ran ANOTHER personal best at Richmond. 2:57:25, 65th overall. Oh, by the way, he's running the JFK 50 Miler next Saturday for team DOJO Racing (after I implored him to join our squad). He's like the winner of the pie eating competition where the prize is way more pie.

Ty Gruszewski appears again, popping up at Richmond with an almost perfectly paced 3:18:27. Ty ran 296th overall, with metronomic efficiency. 

Our own Canadian "Beebs," Shannon Beebe, went into Richmond with the goal of running a Boston qualifying time (3:35). So...she ran way faster than that. Shannon checked in with a 3:14:33 today, coming in 33rd among women. Not bad for coming off an Ironman 1.5 months ago.

Finally, Dojo buddy Cindy Conant did her usual thing, with a 1:26:36 half marathon. Cindy came in 22nd overall among women and won her age group by a whopping 10 minutes.

Movie Screening Tonight - Western Time

For those interested, YouTube is hosting a live stream of a new running documentary called "Western Time." Stream starts at 9 PM tonight, at the following link:

http://youtube.com/BillyYangFilms

The film follows pro ultra-runner Sally McCrae's race at Western States earlier this year. Recommended for those interested in Western States or trail running in general.

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9yKLj9HdGc

Here's a review:

http://www.irunfar.com/2014/11/western-time-film-review.html