Family weekend

The track family participates in the Friends of Jaclyn event on the Walkway (sprint crew picture below, full team above)

The sprint crew has some dress-up fun at Family Weekend.

Mike Piazza Day: BroFest in the Citi

Thanks to our good pal Sean T. McMann of the Poughkeepsie Journal, we were able to provide my youngest son James with an early birthday gift (the little guy turns 8 next weekend) by going to Mike Piazza Day at Citi Field. It was his first time at Citi Field and first time on a NYC Subway (we took Metro North to Grand Central and then the 7 train to Citi Field). It was a picture perfect day and great to see future Hall of Famer Piazza get honored. I was always a big Piazza guy. What’s not to like? An underdog Italian-American story? Are you kiddin’ me! James, being a very active second grader, was equally interested in the myriad planes flying overhead as he was the somewhat dreary and meaningless game on the field between the Mets and the Brewers. I have to say that Citi Field is quite an excellent place to bring a kid and watch a game.

Going to the final regular season game harkens me back to a mini-tradition I had with my older brothers in the 1970s. For several years, we made it a point to go to the final game of the season at Yankee Stadium. One year, 1978, that last game of the year was extremely meaningful. The Yankees lost to Rick Waits and the lowly Cleveland Indians, as we sat in the upper deck behind home plate on a warm Sunday like yesterday, in a curiously half-empty stadium (these days, a game like this would be a packed, rockin’ affair). Meanwhile, the hated Red Sox won up at Fenway. This, of course, forced the one-game playoff the next day – the “Bucky Dent” game – and the rest, as they say, is history.

For those keeping score at home, I went to three MLB games this year – two at Citi Field and one at Yankee Stadium. All courtesy of great and loyal friends. Yeah, I know: More Mets’ games than Yankee games. What the heck, right?

Friday night lights

A book, a movie and an entire series have been made about the genre of high school football under the lights. Yeah, it's a huge deal in Texas and elsewhere. I guess.

Friday night lights came to Hyde Park, where I live. Our school district voters approved the renovation and building of a new stadium -- turf field, track, bleachers, concession stands, the whole nine yards (or in this case, 100 yards?). Last night was the great unveiling, and we were there to see it. The home team crushed the visiting team, the place was packed, seemingly the entire town was there and everyone was happy. Since our children currently attend or will attend the high school, the upgraded facilities will benefit them and the thousands of other students at the school, so it was great to see. Also great to see our favorite new middle school teacher and her friend in attendance.

Go Presidents.

Anatomy of a perfect workout venue

--Shaded, traffic free rail trail
--Soft surface, hard-packed dirt and gravel
--Flat and scenic
--Friendly cyclists and walkers/runners curious about who we are and what we were doing there.
--And the clincher: A mighty Stewart's Shop across from the Park and Ride where we kept our vans. Hydration may be key for our athletes; coffee is key for this coach.

On Friday, our men's and women's cross country teams traveled to the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail and did intervals from just north of the center of New Paltz village. It's a little bit of work and takes a lot of coordination, because of the distance from campus. But it's worth the effort. We do this workout a few times each XC season and it is a staple of our training. All the ingredients above make it a great day for our program.

Next week at Paul Short

We have been attending the Paul Short Run at Lehigh for more than a decade. It's one of the best cross country festivals anywhere. There are a lot of races all day -- open, college, high school. This year's meet is on Saturday, a departure from the usual Friday date. This enables us, for the first time ever, to go down on Friday late afternoon and spend the night before the early races on Saturday. In the past, we have had a 5 a.m. bus departure -- usually in a driving rainstorm -- followed by a long ride and groggy runners stepping off the bus and right into their warmup runs. So, this should be more civil, anyway.

More details on race times and placements when they are posted. Our first athletes race at 10 a.m. Hope to see you there.

Already missing baseball

The New York Yankees have been eliminated from postseason baseball for only the second time in about 20 years, so now I am faced with the prospect of not having my favorite evening companion around for the next six months. Either way, the postseason's not the same. I love the routine of the regular season, and it will be missed. Not to worry. I have a stack of books on my night stand, waiting to have the dust brushed off.

Did you see the Mariano Rivera sendoff last night? This is why we love sports. It was mostly unscripted and the emotions were pure and raw.

Three. Two. One. POP!

How many workouts and practices have I overseen in the past 23 years? It’s mind-boggling to think about this, as it certainly numbers in the thousands. That’s a lot of van rides, water coolers, measuring wheels and cones. Earlier this season, one of our athletes questioned why I say “ready, go” at the beginning of every interval repetition. I usually say it in a very low-key and matter-of-fact way. He was wondering why it was not more elaborate and in three parts – you know, “on your mark, get set, go,” or something like that.

I really did not have an answer for him. Probably, sometime back in 1991 at one of my earliest practices, I said “ready, go” and that’s what it has been ever since. I really gave it very little thought. As the team has grown from one van and a ragtag group of 10 men (circa 1991) to three vans and a very cohesive unit of 30-plus men and nearly 30 women, so too have the workouts and workout groups grown. So while “ready, go” still works just fine, thank you very much, there is also the need for a bit of self-service timing given the spread among groups and runners.

And so, in the past few years, the men have grouped up and given themselves a countdown to the next interval. It goes like this: 3-2-1 POP! And off they go. I feel like I have posted about this in the past. If so, I am sorry for recycling material; it happens, I guess. This topic is fresh in my mind as we are in the middle of perhaps the most intense week of training during the cross country season, featuring long workouts and long runs.

Will thrills in half marathon debut

When I saw Marist Running Alum Will Griffin at Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday, he was telling me how his training has not been all that consistent since he left us for good in May, after an awesome five-year run. Will is living in New Jersey and has started his teaching career. He has hooked up with the Garden State Track Club and hopes to pursue a successful post-graduate running career. Sunday, he got that off to a great start.

Will placed fourth in the Newport Liberty Half Marathon in Jersey City. His time of 1:09:59.93 was an average of 5:20 per mile for 13.1 miles. Admittedly, his training really has not been geared toward this long of a distance. But remember, Will had a solid bank of quality training during his time here, and hopefully some of that residual fitness helped to get him through this race. Either way, a sub-1:10:00 for a half marathon debut is pretty fancy. Nicely done, Will!

Cross country, time vs. place: An analysis

I'm a numbers guy. Anyone who reads this blog gets that. It’s why I love baseball; baseball is a quantifiable game. It’s a numbers game. And I love the advanced metrics of baseball too, because it goes a long way toward explaining the seemingly unexplainable. But worry not: This will not devolve into another long-winded treatise on baseball numbers.

So yeah. I’m a numbers guy. Of course! What do I post after every track meet? Splits, splits and more splits. Sometimes even splits of splits. In numbers, there are truths. Right. Right?

Well. Trying to apply this to cross country sometimes proves to be a slippery slope. Lord knows, I have tried. Anyone who has ever seen my all-time Van Cortlandt Park time lists for men gets it. The course at Vanny remained unchanged for decade after decade after decade; we were able to compare and contrast generations of runners – from Marty McGowan (1970s) to Marty Feeney (1990s); from Greg Salamone (late-90s/early 00s) to Nick Salamone (current freshman). However, in the past five or so years, due to construction at the park, the Vanny course has undergone many different variations. This, of course, skewed the record-keeping; which, of course, annoyed me – and others who care about such stuff -- to no end. But alas, it is what it is.

Through the years, I have come to realize that cross country is a sport that is about place. Whenever we try to judge cross country teams and cross country athletes strictly by time performance, we often miss the mark. It’s about beating the guy next to you. Oh sure, we set time goals, especially on courses that we have run year after year after year. But ultimately, we must judge as much on place as on time; track is not always like that, but cross country is usually like that.

This brings us to the men’s results of today’s Iona meet at Vanny. Alumni and close followers of the program may be taken aback at the relatively slow times posted by the men. My quick analysis of the meet to the team was this: We are definitely not pleased with how we ran, but we are also not discouraged. The effort was there, top to bottom. Do we need to get better? Of course we need to get better!

But OK, here’s what you are waiting for (or not): How about some numbers analysis, huh? Top to bottom, all coaches agreed that the times were much slower than normal today, for whatever reason. We will not try to delve into the “why” of this. Rather, how about a little perspective, shall we?

OK. Here goes. Today’s winning team, by a lot, was Iona College. No shocker there. It’s their home meet, they are nationally ranked as usual and they appear to be the top team in the Northeast Region again. So, how fast did the Gaels run today? Their top-5 man average time was 25:45.

Now, a little Marist program history: The top four team top-5 averages in Marist history goes like this:

1. MAAC 2011, 25:40.6 (Griffin, Flint, DelaCruz, Lipari, Walshak)
2. IC4A 2010, 25:42.0 (Flint, DelaCruz, Griffin, Walshak, Keegan)
3. IC4A 2008, 25:44.6 (Raucci, Segni, Keegan, Griffin, Shelley)
4. Iona 2008, 25:45.6 (Segni, Raucci, Shelley, Flint, Keegan)

This means that Iona’s team today was exactly equivalent to the fourth-best team in Marist history – and the exact same team, timewise, as the one that ran at this very meet, almost to the day, five years ago. Think about that for a moment. That team, which by the way finished an excellent sixth place at that meet, was not national caliber; not even close. It wasn’t even the best Vanny team in school history. And yet, it was equivalent today to a national powerhouse team. Do you think my friends down at Iona are crunching the numbers and wringing their hands like this over these times today? Uh, no. Their athletes won the race. They raced hard, and they raced in a strong pack, and they dominated a pretty strong field out there. The times are what they are. This bothers the logical, numbers guy in me, but it is also instructive in terms of the importance of placement over time.

Iona Meet of Champions: Women's results

Much like the men, the times were slower than expected here. We had some major illness issues running through the team this week. Erin Thompson (illness) and Nicki Nesi (slight hamstring strain) did not race today, but both should be back at full strength at Paul Short in two weeks. The women ran tough today. I saw a lot of effort out there. We have many goals to chase and gaps to close, and we will get after it every day in practice.

Iona College Meet of Champions

Saturday, Sept 21, 2013

Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY

Women’s team standings

1-Albany 67, 2. Iona 100, 3. Quinnipiac 122, 4. Brown 157, 5. Kent State 161, 6. Army 199, 7. St. Joseph’s (Pa.) 212, 8. Fordham 219, 9. Northeastern 222, 10. Colgate 255, 11. Marist 261, 12. Valparaiso 303, 13. Yale 315, 14. Adelphi 382, 15. UMass Lowell 389, 16. Manhattan 441, 17. American International 479, 18. St. John’s 481, 19. Siena 511, 20. St. Francis (NY) 564

Women’s individual results, 6-kilometer course

15. Kristen Traub 23:24.22

27. Michelle Gaye 23:40.49

48. Janelle Solviletti 24:09.16

88. Taylor Mueller 25:16.01

91. Brianna Freestone 25:19.93

95. Tara Nuccitelli 25:25.41

96. Christine Coughlin 25:30.07

102. Jaime Durso 25:36.51

104. Bianca Luparello 25:37.54

117. Bryn Gorberg 25:56.63

123. Jackie Gamboli 26:04.09

127. Olivia Lappas 26:14.76

131. Annie Gould 26:18.49

146. Kim Schwartz 26:59.04

150. Jacqueline Bunce 27:09.44

173. Allison Dellicarri 28:19.31

174. Lizzie Peper 28:26.51

180. Marissa Porter 29:24.21

185. Kristi Licursi 30:02.02

Iona Meet of Champions: Men's results

Top to bottom (our team and other teams) the times were very slow today at Van Cortlandt for some reason. Our men did decent/OK/not great. We have work to do but I believe in this group. Our 1-5 spread of 34 seconds was great, and the only teams with tighter spreads were Iona (they won) and Yale (they got second). Having said that, we need to move our pack up a bit. In due time. Many more miles to go ...

Iona College Meet of Champions

Saturday, Sept 21, 2013

Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY

Men’s team standings

1-Iona 37, 2. Yale 97, 3. Navy 103, 4. St. Joseph’s (Pa.) 113, 5. Army 117, 6. Brown 195, 7. Northeastern 220, 8. UMass Lowell 260, 9. Fordham 284, 10. American International 288, 11. Kent State 310, 12. Boston College 344, 13. Marist 363, 14. Adelphi 374, 15. Albany 379, 16. Quinnipiac 454, 17. Siena 468, 18. Manhattan 486, 19. Monroe 603, 20. Valparaiso 621

Men’s individual results, 5-mile course

65. Ryan Scrudato 26:56.80

76. Ken Walshak 27:04.75

93. Pat Rynkowski 27:21.94

94. Mark Valentino 27:23.24

100. Johnny Lee 27:31.00

122. Ryan Colabella 27:49.12

127. Justin Tampellini 27:52.00

133. Saad Baig 27:56.78

137. Nick Salek 28:01.76

141. Mark Vuono 28:04.15

143. Jake Hensler 28:05.08

144. Nick Salamone 28:05.68

146. Omar Perez 28:10.83

154. Spencer Johnson 28:17.55

164. Billy Hild 28:28.84

173. Pat Deedy 28:50.11

177. Stefan Morton 29:09.94

The greatness of Mariano Rivera

Today, I would like to share with you a link to a very special story from ESPNNewYork.com, written by my Marist journalism classmate Ian O'Connor. The story is long, but please try to carve out 15 minutes of your life to read it. It may change the way you go about your day-to-day activities.

None of us can fire 91-mile-per-hour cut fastballs with pinpoint accuracy, as Yankee great Mariano Rivera has done for nearly 20 years in establishing himself as the greatest relief pitcher in Major League Baseball history. However, we can all aspire to his gentle and humble ways -- his greatness as a human being -- by connecting with and caring for all those with whom we come in contact on a daily basis. Mo has done that during his most unique farewell tour of visiting ballparks. He talks to the "regular people" and it is not window dressing. He cares, and he remembers, at every stop along his final season.

The money quote from the story: "You don't know how many lives you can touch by just being nice to people." What a simple and yet profound statement, something we can all live by and aspire toward, as we make our way through each and every day.

Tailgating at Vanny

For those parents, family and friends looking to contribute to Saturday's Team Tailgate at Van Cortlandt Park, please contact Kathy Gould at kathygould@optonline.net. We appreciate all the support, and our athletes more than appreciate all the food and drink! See you there ...

Phil and Friends: More results from the weekend

A few more results from the weekend …
--Coach Emeritus Phil Kelly placed third in the 70-plus age group at the Dutchess County Classic in 1:59:21, an average of 9:07 per mile. Phil continues to train hard and strong at the youthful age of 70, and he continues to chase running and racing goals. Good stuff.

--Cheryl Fil, a Marist Alum and one of Phil’s former charges, placed second in the 25-29 division in 1:38:06. Cheryl is an Arlington High School graduate, so the Classic was a coming home party for her as that is where the race was staged.

--Marist Running Alum Kathryn Bernarde, another one of Phil’s former Foxettes, ran the Palio Half Marathon in Saratoga Springs (thanks to Lisa D’Aniello for texting me her result!) in a very strong time of 1:36:58.

The Marist Alumni Running web continues to grow and it is tough to keep up with all the men and women out there running hard and running strong – a great “problem” to have! Please keep the updates coming.

Dutchess County Classic: Kelley's race well run

A smiling start on a sunny morning

Age-group winner: Trophy and ... salsa? YES!

As stated in the previous post, recent Marist alum Kelley Gould had a great debut at the Dutchess County Classic Half Marathon. She won her age group and showed a veteran's poise in managing her first-ever 13.1-mile race. Here are her splits from today's race:

7:43, 7:06, 7:13, 7:13, 7:29, 7:10, 7:08, 7:16, 7:13, 7:01, 6:58, 7:12, 7:03, 0:43 
Total: 1:34:35

This, my friends, is good stuff. We are proud of her, now and always. Nicely done!