Sunday, August 20, 2006

2-FOR-2

It turns out I’m two-for-two when it comes to the last two races I wanted to run; twice I’ve waited till the day-of to register and twice I’ve found out there wasn’t any race-day registration. What’s up with that? Is this the new trend in road racing?

So instead of running a 10k on Saturday I decided to get in 20 miles while watching all 3 races. That run gave me 64 miles for the week on 6 runs – plus an hour of biking.

In the women’s race, Katie McGregor was 10 seconds off the Minnesota State record that she set last year, winning in 32:27. Marla Runyan was nearly a minute back in 33:18. The rest of the top-5 was Kristen Nicolini, Jenny Crain and Jenelle Deatherage. In the men’s race, Mathew Chesang won in 28:57, five seconds faster than Jason Lehmkuhle who ran the fastest time ever in Minnesota by a Minnesotan. Complete results can be found here.

Later that evening I’m checking my emails and there’s one from some Tracy I’ve never heard of with the subject “Was that you?” I almost deleted it without reading it. Luckily I took a closer look. It turns out Tracy lives in the area and she found my blog awhile ago, through Alison’s blog. Anyway, during her race, she recognized me from my profile picture (umm Tracy, you’re supposed to be focused and in the zone – not looking at all the “studs” running around). A huge congrats goes out to Tracy for PRing and breaking 40 for the first time. In the process she ran with some of the top local women and gained confidence for future races.

On another race note, congrats to coach Matt for his performances at Pike’s Peak marathon over the weekend. Matt was 51st overall in the ascent on Saturday in 3:01:44 and 31st overall in the marathon on Sunday in 4:57:53. That placed him 5th overall among “Doublers.” If you look at the doubler results you’ll see a guy from Spain in first and then 12 of the next 13 guys are from Colorado. The only flatlander in the mix is Matt. Also, congrats to teammates Erik and Moira. Erik ran the ascent in 3:47:44, shaving 20 minutes off of last year’s time, while Moira completed her first ascent in 4:04:27.

Quote of the day;

“If the coach cannot do it, he cannot ‘teach’ it – only talk about it.” – Percy Cerutty

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it is the new trend (the closing off registrations early). Road race organization is all about paying cash up front before you get the entry fees rolling in, and then hoping the entries will at least cover your fixed costs. Hence, the discounts you get for registering early, and the near-total absence of races allowing you to recoup entry fees if you get injured.

It does seem odd that they actually don't have race day registration since presumably they could set the price at a level that would cover the costs of paying a person or two to take entries etc.