12-hour relay

We revived a tradition after about a decade layoff today, 12 hours of running from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The women paired up and did a 1-mile campus loop, each runner doing between 8 and 10 miles throughout the day.

The men paired up and did 30-minute runs, all doing at least two runs and several doing three runs.

With 10 new men and 12 new women on the team, this was an excellent way to do some team bonding, and in my case, try to learn some of the new girls' names. I'm doing my best.

Everyone had a good time as I3 and I4 served as gracious hosts. The weather was good, no rain!

This also served as our primary Disney fundraiser. Any alumni and friends reading this that would like to contribute to our rather hefty pricetag to bring 20 men and 20 women to Disney for the MAAC championships can send checks made to Marist College to the address below:

Pete Colaizzo
Marist College
Track/XC Office
McCann Rec Center
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387

All donations (however small or large) are welcome.

Thanks in advance, and thanks as always for reading ...

Bowdoin Park on Wednesday

This morning, we (re)introduced the team to our official Home Course: Bowdoin Park.

We did a hill fartlek workout on the course, followed by some roughly 1k repeats on the flats/trails around the soccer fields/finish area.

It was early, but the team was peppy and ran well. And very little complaining about the hills.

We'll be going to Bowdoin more this year.

Back to Minnewaska on Thursday, followed by a return to the 12-hour relay tradition on Friday.

Fast kid with an old man

Check out the photo with this post from a 5k trail run recently in Beacon -- Dennings Point 5k. Joey was the youngest finisher at age 8 and he dragged his old man through the course in 27:32. Part of the course was single-track trails. Nothing too tough, but not a flat road, for sure.

Pretty respectable effort for the young guy. And he ran negative splits and had a kick!

It was fun running with him, but I came to the realization that his "race" pace is about the same as my "easy" training pace. This means that, in a few years if he keeps at it, his "race" pace and my "race" pace may be one in the same! How weird is that?

Joey enjoyed running around at the Ogden hills workout and is looking forward to attending other practices this fall.

Enjoy the day.

Minnewaska

Today's preseason destination was a perennial favorite: Minnewaska State Park Preserve west of New Paltz. Returning athletes love this trip. New runners learn to love it.

This year, we are planning a second Minnewaska adventure -- on Thursday morning. Any and all alumni and friends of the program are welcome to join us. We'll be there as soon as the park opens, at 9 a.m.

We'll do the usual 9- and 11-mile loops.

The weather today was absolutely perfect. It's always a few degrees cooler up at Minnewaska and this morning was no different. The team dipped into the lake afterwards.

The highlight/lowlight of that was when a pretty big and scary water snake slithered around unaware team members, until those of us out of the water pointed it out. Conor, being Conor, splashed menacingly at the snake, no doubt pissing it off -- and he pissed off the lifeguards, too! Ah, it's nice to have the guys back ...

Save the date: Friday, September 5

To all (any?) alumni reading this blog:

On Friday, September 5th, we will be hosting our first home meet at Bowdoin Park in 11 years. It will be a small meet. The only teams attending, other than your favorite Running Red Foxes, are:

St. Peter's
NYU (D3 National Champions, 2007!)

We will run the 5km course for men and women. A low-key, time-trial type meet.

After the meet (4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. race times), we will have a retirement celebration party at Bowdoin for outgoing women's coach Phil Kelly. Befitting our style (Phil and I), it will not be fancy: Pizzas, Gatorade, water, etc.

Please spread the word as all alums are encouraged and invited to attend this event.

Please get the news going via email, facebook, texting, etc.

Or even better: Direct your friends to This Fancy Blog!

Take care and thanks for reading.

coach pete

Ogden Hills revisited

Hello again!

Remember the blog?

Well, I took a few months off. So sue me. Dock me my pay, already. Now it's time to make up for lost ground, hopefully, with more posts.

Now that the team is back in town, we're all energized by each other's company. It is a fun and serious group, and we saw that this afternoon at Ogden Mills with our annual, season-opening workout.

The "van talk" today brought up this fancy blog and why it hasn't been updated in months. So, for you blog fans out there on the team and beyond, I'll try to revive it a bit with team news and updates and the usual.

Obviously, as we get near and around meet times, I will use the blog as a way to summarize and analyze our performances.

Today's workout was excellent despite the heat. It was great to see the men's and women's teams practicing together, and that will happen with more frequency in the coming days, weeks and months.

We are heading into a new and exciting time in our program's history, and I am looking forward to it.

So after a summer of slacking off in my coaching duties -- what the heck, it is basically a 7-day-a-week job for about 9 months! -- I'm back at it and I will try to blog on a semi-regular basis.

Hopefully someone out there is still reading.

Have an excellent evening, everyone ...