An old friend visits a very old lady (and me too)

In the midst of perhaps the busiest stretch of track in the entire three-season cycle, it was great to squeeze in a few hours with our old friend Bob Sweeney, back in New York for a few days over the weekend. Bob now lives near Boulder, CO, where he enjoys living and training at altitude with his family. When he wants some serious altitude, he heads up to Leadville. Anyway, Bob was an old Marist teammate and a loyal training partner as a post-graduate, not to mention a great friend. He was in the area to run the Sybil Ludington 50-kilometer race in Carmel, one of our all-time favorites. Bob proved he is still on top of his game at age 46, finishing second overall in 3:31:06, an average of 6:49 per mile on a course that has more than 2,000 feet of climbing. His marathon split (remember, this is a 31-mile race) was sub-3:00. Sybil the race is a hilly but scenic road loop. Sybil the person was a Revolutionary War heroine; go ahead, look her up if you've never heard of her.

The photo above was from a backyard bonfire on Saturday night. Bob remains very interested in our program and follows our results here at blog central. We hadn't caught up in person since he moved West several years ago, so it was time well spent.