Thursday Night at Penn Relays

Thursday Night at Penn ... wasn’t so great for the Running Red Foxes …

We did get two personal-best performances, however slight they were. Hey. A PR is a PR. But still, overall it was a disappointing night for us. Such is life.

In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Arquimedes DelaCruz never could get into a great rhythm and finished 13th in 9:25.28. This is slightly better than his season-opening 9:25.90 at Sam Howell/Princeton three weeks ago.

In the same event, senior captain Matt Janczyk was running well, but took a nasty spill in the water after the third lap. Later as he was approaching the fourth-lap split, he did a face-plant after tripping on one of the barriers. He struggled in, battered and bruised, much to the delight of the crowd. Like some fans of auto racing that are looking for a car wreck, the Penn crowd for the steeple loves a good tumble. So Matt was unwittingly the star of the show for these folks.

In the 5,000, Girma Segni warmed up and did some strides but opted not to race due to a severe upper respiratory infection. He wasn’t even going to make the trip, but I encouraged him to come down and give it a go. Girm is not one to back away from a challenge. He has run some of his best races while less than 100 percent. It just wasn’t happening tonight. Too bad, because we feel he is in great shape!

Adam Vess had to drop out of the second section of the 5km. He was cruising along pretty good for a little less than 2 miles, when suddenly his breathing became labored and he nearly blacked out. He got checked out by the medics at Penn, who surmised this might be a side effect from the severe anemia he has been battling since indoors. Again, Vess is not one to back away from a good race, and it was tough to see him in this state.

Matt Flint got 12th out of 41 in the 5km race with a PR time of 14:37.43. He just missed the IC4A standard of 14:36.00 – due in large part to too-slow early laps. He had a tremendous kick and was able to edge out an old high school rival of his, which was thrilling for him. But he had too much left and needed to move sooner. The PR was slightly faster than his 14:38.77 run at Bucknell two weeks ago. Again, a PR is a PR, but it was slightly disappointing to miss the IC4A standard in this event.

Here are the splits from Thursday Night at Penn:

3,000 steeple

Arquimedes DelaCruz: 9:25.28. Personal-best time
74, 2:28 (74), 3:42 (74), 4:59 (77), 6:16 (77), 7:37 (81), 8:58 (81), 9:25.28 (27.28). Note: Penn splits are WEIRD because of the odd layout of the steeple.

Matt Janczyk: 9:56.10
75, 2:30 (75), 3:44 (74), 5:04 (80) fell twice in this lap!; 6:27 (83), 7:55 (88), 9:24 (89), 9:56.10 (32.10)

5,000-meter run

Matt Flint: 14:37.43. Personal-best time
73, 2:23 (70), 3:34 (71), 4:43 (69)
5:54 (71), 7:05 (71), 8:15 (70), 9:25 (70)
10:34 (69), 11:46 (72), 12:57 (71), 14:07 (70)
14:37.43 (30.43)