AAU: A quick update

I know many followers of this fancy blog are waiting with baited breath for results from today's AAU Championships at the Vassar Track. Complete results will follow in a subsequent post.

Here is the quick report:

--Times were slowed dramatically by a stiff southwest wind. The wind was a MAJOR factor today. Not uncommon for outside in early March.

--A special guest appearance from one of the AAU workout founders, Marist Running Alum Justin Harris! Jut rode his fancy triathlon road bike over to Poughkeepsie from his home in New Paltz -- quite a warmup! -- and then did the workout with the guys. He did the first 3,200 (10:05) and then opted for the 1,600 interval (5:01). He reported that his times were very similar to the first time he attempted such activities, back about 8 years ago.

--Quimes DelaCruz won both 3,200-meter intervals in an unplanned workout. As tends to happen with these things, his housemate and teammate Mike Nicoletti (who has excellent AAU workout history, by the way) baited him into a friendly wager that he could not run 9:10. Never one to back down from a challenge, Q spiked up and went for it -- with the help of pacer Tommy Lipari. He did not come close, but did run 9:20 in the wind -- pretty impressive. Tommy took him through 1600 in 4:39; so it was essentially an even-paced effort (although the first 200 with the tailwind was ridiculously fast!). Nicely done from our IC4A boys. Quimes came back with a 9:44 on the second one.

--Cheesy high school (and other) uniforms were in full force, as per standard AAU workout tradition. Side note: Thanks to loyal blog follower Marty McGowan for emailing some classic road race T-shirt photos in the spirit of the day. We took a group photo with Jut's fancy iPhone. If they came out, they will be posted with the results later.

--By my quick count, a whopping 22 men completed both 3,200-meter intervals. Surely, this is an AAU workout record. There were only a handful of DNFs on the second 3,200-meter interval. Great to see such a large finishing group!

--The middle-distance group did 2x1,600 as their workout today, followed by some 200s.

So in all, we had more than 30 men out there on the track today, for the first-ever outdoor AAU Championship of America in March.

Check back later for complete results and hopefully a photo or two ...