Racing Roundup - April 11-12

I've been WAY behind on putting out a racing roundup. Here are the basics for the past couple weeks. I'm sure I will probably miss some results, please be assured that any omissions are due to my incompetence and not my mean-spiritedness.

Saturday, April 11

US 100K Champs (Mad City 100K) - Madison, WI:

Another race, another learning experience! Most memories are hazy at this point, but I do remember a few things:

* A huge, and quite delicious, sushi dinner the night before the race. When the restaurant puts four sets of chopsticks in your bag based on your personal order, you've ordered a lot of sushi.

* Seeing a giant tree branch (itself the size of a medium-sized tree) take a 50 foot drop and landing about 10 feet from me around the 65K mark. Me being so tired at that point that it took me a couple miles to realize, 'whoa, that was really dangerous!'

* Jen standing at the aid station for 7+ hours gamely managing one sometimes grumpy runner and his way-too-elaborate system of 4 different bottles (each with a different beverage), 10 assorted ziploc bags, and two bottles of electrolyte tablets.

There were some ups and downs, but in the end, I managed a second place finish in 7:15. Bad news is that I really would have loved the win, but the silver lining is that the time was fast enough to be in the selection pool for the US 100k national team. HUGE thanks to crew chief supreme Jen, who once again talked me into staying in the race when the chips were down and kept me on track.

Sunday, April 12

Cherry Blossom 9.39 Miler

Probably our best club performance to date, from top to bottom. Tons of great performances across the board. In particular, some great team performances, where we nearly won the club competition for both men and women.

The open men's team came in second out of 14 teams, a mere 1:24 behind Capital Area Runners and ahead of great teams like PR Racing and MCRRC.  Jeff Redfern ran possibly his best race in a Dojo singlet, crushing a 50:50 and coming in 42nd overall. Josh Sohn was mere seconds behind, with a 51:16 and 52nd overall. Geoff King powered through with a 55:22, which is pretty remarkable given that he has only started cranking up the workouts. Jack Kelly runs a solid 58:39, and Shawn Rumery checks in with a relaxed, almost somnambulent 1:15:57.

The masters team came in 3rd out of 12 teams, led by Jim Moore (58:35, running stride for stride with Joan Samuelson), Jen Maranzano (59:00, 6th in age group, coming off crewing the day before, flying in at 9 PM the night before this race!), Alan Pemberton (1:01:55, 2nd in age group), and Robert Gillanders (1:02:41, 22d in age group).

The open women's team came in 2nd out of 8 teams, with some great runs. Rachel ran a very solid 59:15 as she preps for Ottawa. Judy Chen ran 1:00:56 as a pre-London tune-up. Jenny Paul ran a 1:02:38, and Laura Jennings runs a 1:03:45.

There were plenty of other great races as well. Megan ran a fantastic 56:13, finishing third in her age group, not an easy thing to do at a deep race like Cherry Blossom. Ryan Johnson ran a 52:12, narrowly besting his former roommate. Shlomo Fishman led his MCRRC team with a 55:08, and Frank Fung led another MCRRC team with a 1:01:52.