Monday, September 29, 2008

Minnewaska Marathon?

Matt Walsh, a regular blog reader, former Running Red Fox and current Alumni Racing Team member, sent me an email a few weeks ago about this crazy race idea he has.

Well, it's not that crazy, really, and it's an idea that had been bandied about by Schab and other nutcases of that era.

And that idea is ... a run from Marist College to our favorite preseason destination, Minnewaska State Park Preserve over in Ulster County. Coincidentally, this run is precisely a marathon distance.

Walsh's idea is to have a fundraising race from Poughkeepsie to Minnewaska, with the timeframe being sometime next spring. Sounds swell to me, but the logistics of it could be daunting. But Walsh seems motivated to get it done.

Hmmm ... I sense ... ANOTHER POLL QUESTION! Sure. Why not?

Paul Short schedule

Hello all:

Sorry for the lapse in posts. Will try to make up for lost time this week. In the meantime, here is the schedule of races Friday at Lehigh:

11:00am Men's College Brown (DI and ranked non-DI) Championship (7 runners) 8K Race
11:45pm Women's College Brown (DI and ranked non-DI) Championship (7 runners) 6K Race
12:15pm Men's JV 8K Race (All teams- remaining runners)
1:00pm Women's JV 6K Race (All teams- remaining runners)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ogden Hills revisited

Don't mean to skew the poll voting ... but a different take on the Ogden Hills workout worked out quite well for us on Tuesday.

Instead of doing the hills as "repeats" (which turns into a glorified 300-meter speed workout), we did each set as an accelerator (progression) run. Also, "Gary" misses Tuesday practice, which adds a whole new element to the team dynamic. And so, it went really well.

After Tuesday, I would vote "Love It" in a minute.

And I think a lot of the guys would, too.

Let your voice be known!

Monday, September 22, 2008

A new poll

With a rare, midseason revisit to the usual, first-day-of-practice Ogden Mills hills workout coming up on Tuesday, I thought it would be a good subject for a new poll question.

Most readers of this blog are present or past runners under me since 1991. That has been our traditional first practice workout ever since I started coaching.

It is a mostly love-hate thing with the "Ogden Hills." Some (Rolek?) think the hill is "cheesy."

So I thought it might make for a good poll question.

Feel free to vote or comment on it here.

Iona MOC results

Sorry I didn't post over the weekend. After the great day at VCP on Saturday, I was busy with the Dutchess County Classic road race all day Sunday. Below are the results. More commentary to follow ...

Team standings:
1. University of Michigan 39
2. Penn State 121
3. Iona 153
4. Navy 197
5. Lehigh 205
6. Marist 210
7. Kentucky 211
8. Penn 214
9. Southern Utah 218
10. UMass Lowell 241
11. St. Joseph’s 289
12. Stony Brook 295
13. Boston College 325
14. Stonehill 328
15. Providence 482
16. Marist Alumni Racing Team 486
17. Wayne State 495
18. Toledo 495
19. California (PA) 549
20. Bloomsburg 559
21. Hofstra 564
22. Manhattan 585
23. Ramapo 663
24. UDC 784
25. Dowling 806
26. Mercy 812
27. Cornell, CW Post, KSU incomplete

Marist finishers
9. Girma Segni 25:01.4. personal-best, VCP school record
23. David Raucci 25:19.1. personal-best
38. Conor Shelley 25:33.8. personal-best
82. Matthew Flint 26:25.2. personal-first
86. Tim Keegan 26:28.5. personal-best
93. Nick Webster 26:35.1. personal-best
108. Joe McElhoney 26:42.1
116. Will Griffin 26:49.7. personal first
120. Curtis Jensen 26:51.0. personal first
131. John Keenan 27:01.6
132. Matt Janczyk 27:02.0. personal best
133. Tom Lipari 27:02.3. personal first
139. Brian Townsend 27:05.1. personal first
159. Alex Emerel 27:17.6
163. Zak Smetana 27:21.3. personal best
183. Sam McMullen 27:46.1. personal best
188. Frank Stewart 27:54.3. personal first
205. Patrick Duggan 28:10.9
212. Gregory Masto 28:20.4
229. Kyle Havard 28:47.8. personal first
241. Ryan Brown 29:25.6. personal first

Notes/stats:

-- Top-five combined time average of 25:45.2. School record
-- 9 guys under 27
-- 12 guys between 26:25 and 27:21. Less than a minute. Great depth
-- Every Marist runner under 30:00
-- I was especially impressed with all the "personal-firsts." In other words, I thought as a class, the freshmen ran extremely well for their first time on the challenging VCP course.

Speaking of the course: There was some question among a few alums on the validity of the course because of construction. I believe the course was accurate and possibly even slower than the "normal" course, because the horseshoe-shaped start for the first 600m added two sharp turns that are not normally there.

Visually, it seemed to me the course was accurate. Correcting just the first 600m on the flats (the rest of the course was the same) would seem to me an easy fix, and I think the Iona staff did fine with it. The times were fast but not insane. The weather conditions were perfect, never better for this meet. That, and a national caliber field made for perfect, fast-time conditions.

No asterisks needed, in my book.

Sore calves? I thought so. This happens after racing at the hard Vanny course. Recover well and get ready for some Ogden Hills on Tuesday.

Also: This will be a heavy mileage week as there is no race this weekend. Workouts Tuesday and Friday, mileage and recovery (and ice baths, no doubt) the rest of the time.

See you this afternoon.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

A legend returns ...

Wednesday at Vassar Farm, we started what hopefully will be a weekly tradition in the new-look Running Red Foxes. It was the return of Coach Phil Kelly to practice!

Phil just retired at the end of spring track 2008, but he wants to stay connected with the program. We have found the perfect solution: Wednesday practice.

Since Coach Chuck took over the women's team during the summer, we made the decision that the men's and women's teams would practice off-campus together most of the time, as training schedules permit. But on Wednesdays, Chuck cannot make the midday practice because of his full-time teaching position in Wappingers. That would have left me with the task of overseeing two practices at once. While it's doable, it's also very challenging.

Plan A was for Coach Horton to help out on Wednesdays. But starting next week, he'll be working with the track and field athletes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday for preseason practice, and the Wednesday 11 a.m. slot makes the most sense for meeting with those men and women. That's where Phil (Plan B) comes in! Terry and Phil talked about it at the Bowdoin meet, and a match was made: Phil would be our (pardon the pun) fill-in van driver/coach/sidekick for Wednesday practice.

Just like old times.

And so there we were at The Farm, acting like the two immature goofballs we are when we are around each other.

Phil and I coached together for 17 years and more than 50 seasons of competition. While our training philosophies varied a bit through the years, our friendship never wavered. He was in my wedding party. He's one of my best friends. And so this weekly date with Phil takes the edge off not being able to hang out with him on a regular basis at meets and at McCann.

Wednesdays With Phil. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Vassar Farm wins

The poll is complete and Vassar Farm prevails. Which is good, since that is our practice venue on Wednesday. There were some groans today when that was announced. But alas, everyone had a chance to voice their opinions.

See you at The Farm.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Follow-ups ...

-- Morning run correction: 23 of the 26 team members were there. D. Raucci and J. McElhoney, our commuters and high-mileage boys, were not required to trek into Marist for the early miles. Rest assured, they did their share, wherever they were.

-- Van talk maturity: Note to Walsh/Prinz, etc. You would be surprised and perhaps proud of the level of baseless "humor" in the co-ed van rides.

-- Bowdoin Park tempo: Tougher than I thought today with the heat, but as a group I thought we got through it quite well. With the morning double, it was an extremely productive day of training.

Morning run

Today was the first of our morning run doubles practices: 6:30 a.m., McCann Center. A weird start. When I got out to my car at a little after 5 a.m., the car thermometer said it was 77 degrees outside. Humid, too.

By the time the boys arrived at McCann, it was pushing 80, the sun was up and the humidity was still there. Sunshine and 80 degrees ... these are not usual morning run conditions. By next week, expect dark and about half the temperature.

The most recent captain regimes (Harris, Rolek, et al) started the team morning run doubles tradition. Most guys complain about getting out of bed early, but doubling is a fact of life if you want to be a halfway decent D1 runner. Getting it out of the way first thing makes sense most of the time.

Out of 26 men on the roster, 25 showed up. I won't single out the culprit here on the fancy blog. I texted him to see what the big idea was. He immediately replied with apologies of a faulty alarm clock, and a report that he arrived 20 minutes late and did a 33-minute double.

Nicely done, everyone. See you at Bowdoin Park this afternoon.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Van Talk

Because of the nature of our program, I (we) spend a fair amount of time in vans -- transporting to and from practice venues mostly, but also to meets in the winter and spring seasons as well.

The past few years, Marist has provided us with not-so-subtle, big white vans with Kansas (Kansas?!?) license plates. They are fantastic vans -- usually new and powerful, because they are leased.

Anyway, the past few years -- probably starting sometime around the Harris/Schab/Prinz Era -- Van Talk reached legendary levels.

Van Talk: What's Spoken In The Van, Stays In The Van.

Mostly, I'm a listener. Most of what I hear is hilarious and insightful; sometimes shocking; always entertaining.

Well, my friends, Van Talk has reached new heights now that our men's and women's programs have merged. The men's and women's teams practice together on an almost daily basis. As a result, we are traveling together on a nearly daily basis, which is fantastic.

On Thursday, our workout was at Bowdoin Park (perhaps our next poll question?). Since Coach Chuck works at RCK and that is very close to Bowdoin, I decided to load up the van with men AND women, along with the other cars in our caravan, and away we went.

Van Talk is now co-ed! Naturally, as the maturity level of the men's team continues to plummet while their running gets faster, the level of Van Talk has gotten more interesting. I would have to say the biggest ringleader in Van Talk is currently sophomore Tim Keegan. Now, I know Timmy's mom is a regular blog reader. And so I must interject to Mrs. Keegan that Tim is still the good (and goofy) guy as always.

But alas, I cannot reveal anything further. Because, as we know:

What's Spoken In The Van, Stays In The Van.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Here come the naysayers

I keep checking the Vassar Farm poll question. The YES category was doing well, but now the NO category is making a big surge.

Me? I'm sort of neutral and curious.

I'll admit to not liking VF too much last year because it seemed every day we went there it was like 150 degrees with a blast furnace south wind. Wind is an issue there.

However, there are many plusses too.

Keep voting. And keep reading.

Alumni Race Results: Joe T. tunes up

Joe Tarantello (class of 2008) checked in with a race report from the Labor Day New Haven 20k road race in his home state of Connecticut. Joey Tat did great! He ran the 20k in 1:11:53 and reported the following in an email to his old coach (me):

I was really pleased with it, felt fantastic and felt like I could have gone a little faster so it was a really good confidence booster as the marathon approaches.

Joe T. is running in the Hartford Marathon in a few weeks. He'll tune up at the Iona MOC, where our Alumni Racing Team stands at 11 runners entered. Pretty cool.

Nice job, Joe.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Alumni Race Results: How sweep it is

Up at the ARC Half Marathon and 5k in the Syracuse suburb of Liverpool, it was a Marist Alumni sweep.

-- Steve Hicks (class of 2005) won the half marathon by a whopping 5 minutes in 1:13:41, an average of 5:38 per mile. Steve will be racing at Iona MOC.

-- Mike Melfi (class of 1999) won the 5k in 15:43 (5:04 pace). Mike has had some physical and health issues over the past few months, but he is on the rebound and working on regaining his leg turnover while still pounding out the mileage.

It's pretty cool that these two alums from different Running Red Fox eras are now training together as well.

Alumni Race Results: Celic 4-mile, Staten Island

Mike Rolek (class of 2008), our esteemed former team captain and 10km record holder, nailed a nice 4-miler at Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island -- home of recent alums B-Dix and T-Dix and long-ago and very loyal alum Marty McGowan.

Rolek placed 2nd in the 4-miler to former Iona star Abraham Ngetich. Rolek ran 20:44.9, 10 seconds behind Ngetich. A nice effort. Mike has had some strong road race performances in New Jersey since graduation.

Like many alums, he will be at the Iona Meet of Champions next week and then at the Philadelphia Marathon/Half Marathon in late November.

Nice job, Rolek.

Alumni Race Results: Ocean to Sound Relay

Courtesy of Matthew "Balls To The" Walsh, via email:

Pursuant to your Marist XC web log (aka "blog"), here are some results from yesterday's cross-Island Ocean to Sound 8-person 50 mile running relay-race, or simply "Ocean to Sound" relay.

I am going to break everything down for you, but here are the results...http://www.pigmantri.com/jmsracing/results08/ocean08b.html

Sean Hopkins ran the fastest split for the 2nd leg, representing Sayville Running Company.
(Place for the leg // time // pace)
1 33:40 5:37 ...6 mile leg (flat)

He then came back, immediately, to run the third leg for the Sayville "B" team.
8 41:08 6:26 ...6.4 mile leg (hilly)

Charlie Williams also ran the 7th leg for Sayville "B"
47 51:19 7:33 ...6.8 mile leg (very hilly, toughest leg)

I myself ran, anchoring the Team Runner's Edge co-ed/mixed open team, ran 5:38 pace which if duplicated at VCP (doubtful).. would represent a PR! Exciting stuff.
6 38:17 5:38 ...6.8 mile leg (hilly)

I don't know if you want to put this stuff up on the blog, but it was nice to see 3 Marist alums (though not officially racing for the team) out there on the course, working hard. I'm excited to be running post-surgery PRs..and hopefully soon lifetime bests.

This is a race Hopkins and I are going to push for an alumni team to run next year, hence why I am kind of pushing for some exposure on the site. Maybe if people saw how much fun LI running could be, they would come out more to do some of our many road races.


Coach Pete adds: Nicely done, men! Great to see Walsh healthy and back at it. Hopkins remains an animal as always. And glad Charlie is still running strong (although our Yankees are not doing so well!)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Hey! I just created a poll!

Check to the right, I figured out how to do a poll question. So let me know what you think about this (see previous post for details).

Hey Rolek, you happy? You wanted more posts, you got 'em ...

Vassar Farm: Yay or Nay?

OK, time for a little reader participation.

Current team members and alumni are all welcome to chime in.

There seems to be a polarization of opinion on a certain practice venue: Vassar College Farm.

Past and current team members are divided in a Marist Cross Country sort of Civil War. There seems to be no in between. Either you think it's the greatest workout venue ever, or you can't stand it.

Since we have a fairly large number of newcomers this year, there was a lot of new and raw opinions and emotions after our fartlek on the usual gravel road.

The workout, by the way, went great.

Whaddaya think? Is Vassar Farm a great place to train? Does it stink? Does it matter?

Let me know. Post a comment or shoot me an email at runhed246@hotmail.com

Sorry for the exclamation points

I just noticed that the titles of the past three posts have had exclamation points on them. That's a pet peeve of mine, overuse of exclamation points. I could go back and fix them. But I won't.

Some friends and family of the program took photos from Friday's Bowdoin Park meet. When I figure out how to get them up on this blog, I will do so periodically throughout the fall.

Note to teams:

Workouts: Our "quality" workout days this week will be Monday (fartlek/tempo timed) and Thursday (Bowdoin hills and pushes), with our long run on Saturday. Next week, the quality days will be Monday and Wednesday, with Monday the harder of the two days and Wednesday a longer day with some light pushes.

Doubling: Guys should be doubling on the road or in the pool 3 times this week (no race) and twice next week.

Mileage: Check with me individually to see what mileage level I would like you all at. For the most part, everyone should be between 65-85/week this week and next. I know it's a big range. But it's a big team.

See you soon ...

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Note to alumni: Send your race results to me!

Now that fall road racing season is in full swing, I know a lot of alums are hitting the road -- hopefully sporting the new Marist Alumni Racing Team gear! A few requests to alums from your old coach:

1. If you run in races, any races, and you would like me to post the results here on this blog, please shoot me an email to runhed246@hotmail.com with all the pertinent information. Time, place, age-group, awards, etc. I'm interested, and your teammates and friends are too.
2. If you have any race photos you would like to share, please do so as well.
3. If you want or need new Alumni Racing Team gear, I still have some available, although a lot of it was sold in recent weeks/months.

Best of luck and run strong, everyone!

Take notice of our women's team!

To all alumni and friends of the program who read this primarily for news of the current men's team: Take notice of our women's team! Coach Chuck Williams has done a great job of recruiting this past year and we have a lot of new and fast women's runners.

As many of you know, Chuck and I are working together and practicing together with both teams. He is leading the way with the women and I with the men, but we are assisting each other and working as a team. Not that Phil and I did not do that, but we sort of had separate training schedules.

Anyway, take note and take interest in our women's program. It's up and coming. It's exciting. And it's a lot of fun.

See you soon!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Hot stuff at Bowdoin Park!

Man, it was hot! Temps in the upper 80s, humidity up there too, and a blast furnace hot breeze out of the south kicking up dust at the park. And yet ...

We ran very well for our first meet of the year, and our first home meet in 11 years. Check www.goredfoxes.com later tonight for complete meet results. I was especially pleased with our freshmen performances -- on both the men's and women's sides. Great to see our new athletes debut with such fine efforts. We welcome them all.

Here are the guys' times for the traditional 5k at Bowdoin:

1. Girma Segni 16:08
4. Conor Shelley 16:34 (with a really nasty blister on his heel!)
5. Will Griffin 16:39 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
6. David Raucci 16:41
7. Joe McElhoney 16:48 (grad student, welcome aboard!)
8. Matt Flint 16:49 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
9. Nick Webster 16:50
11. Brian Townsend 16:56 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
13. Curtis Jensen 16:57 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
14. Justin Harris (alum, running unattached) 17:01
15. Tom Lipari 17:09 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
16. Mike Slinskey (friend of the program, running unattached) 17:10
19. Tim Keegan 17:28
20. Sam McMullen 17:33
21. John Keenan 17:34
22. Zak Smetana 17:36
23. Frank Stewart 17:39 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
25. Alex Emerel 17:40
27. Pat Duggan 17:55
31. Greg Masto 18:19
32. Matt Janczyk 18:27
34. Ryan Brown 18:30 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
36. Kyle Havard 18:40 (freshman, welcome aboard!)
42. Mike Holinko 19:29
43. Kris Geist 19:37

After taking an off day on Saturday because of the monsoon, it's back to work on Sunday for a hard week of training as we do not race next week.

It was great seeing all the alums and families at the meet. In all, a fine day and we'll do it again next September.

Home meet today

For the first time since 1997, Marist Cross Country is hosting a home meet at Bowdoin Park.

Men and women will run the traditional 5k course at Bowdoin. Our new assistant coach, longtime local coach Terry Horton, has done a great job as always preparing the Bowdoin course. He has organized race officials and will handle the scoring of the meet. It is a small meet, just 3 teams: Marist, NYU (last year's D3 National Champions in Men's XC) and St. Peter's.

The weather forecast is, in a word: HOT.

I'll post results later in the weekend, or just check www.goredfoxes.com for details.