Shea Bohan road debut = big win!

Congrats to Marist Running Alum Shea Bohan on her successful post-collegiate road racing debut at Sunday's Tunnels to Towers 5K in NYC. Surrounded by friends, family and Coach Chuck, Shea won the women's race overwhelmingly with a time of 20:07, 2:33 ahead of the second-place finisher. Chuck reported via text that the course was more like 3.4 miles rather than the standard 3.1-mile distance for 5km. Nicely done, Shea!

Hardhat City

A lot of younger alums/those active on social media apparently have seen some pretty neat pictures of the ongoing construction of the New McCann Center. We’re all excited here about the new building, which should be open by the end of this calendar year or early January at the latest. Construction is on target. Construction is busy. We live and work among the construction site. Our team vans are parked in a gravel lot in the back of the McCann Center grounds, near the Storage Shed (what some of us old-timers still refer to as the Pole Barn). In particular, on a day like Friday, I’m really blending in with the construction site and the construction workers. I had to gas up two of the vans for our long New Paltz practices – men at 11a and women at 2p. Gas trips, filling up the coolers with water and Gatorade, and eventually coming and going to practice, twice … that is and was a lot of time spent around the guys in the hardhats.

Almost exclusively, these men are not unpleasant. Not exactly welcoming and friendly, but cordial enough to yield right of way to me in the vans, always with a friendly enough wave. Hey. You couldn’t blame them if they were ornery at the coffee slurping moron in the tube socks, going back and forth, back and forth, in white vans (sometimes empty!) among the forklift trucks, dump trucks, front loaders and every other form of heavy machinery that has to navigate through a narrow slice of real estate around and behind the McCann Center. One Hardhat Guy, I think he’s either an HVAC guy or a welder, I see all the time because he is working by the vans and the Storage Shed. We say hello to each other several times a day. Finally, one day earlier this week, he strikes up a conversation.

Hardhat Guy: Where you taking those kids in them vans every day?

Coffee Slurping Moron: Off campus to run. You know, to parks and trails, and sometimes the track.

Hardhat Guy: Track? Why! You don’t have a track here on campus? With all this building they’re doing around here? No track!

CSM: (gritting teeth, holding back) Nah … maybe someday.

How many times have we had this conversation through the years. More than we can count.

Runner of the week!

Congrats to junior Gianna Tedeschi for getting MAAC Runner of the Week honors. According to GoredFoxes.com, this is our first weekly MAAC award (for women's XC) since 2015. Wow! Good stuff. We are off this week, preparing for the Paul Short Run at Lehigh next Saturday, October 4.

Happy birthday to a living legend

Earlier this week, assistant coach Terry Horton celebrated his 71st birthday. He also marked 50 (50!) years as a coach this year, which is a truly remarkable measure of longevity for this hall of fame coach. We feel privileged to have him on our staff and hope he keeps coming back for more. Kudos to sprint captain Tosh for presenting this to him today at practice.

Monmouth post-meet: Pool party

The unusually warm Saturday afternoon provided a perfect backdrop for a perfect post-race party at the Goldzweig's house in New Jersey. Matt and Cristen Goldzweig (parents of sophomore guy Sam) were wonderful hosts. These pre- and post-race gatherings at the homes of our team members are a fine tradition and we are forever grateful for our family support at all meets in all seasons. Thank you to the Goldzweigs!

Old coach, old form

Thanks to Paul Tedeschi (Gianna's dad, an outstanding photographer and an even better dude) for taking this picture of me heading away from the starting line and up the long hill on the Holmdel Park course. This is not a spectator-friendly course, unless you are willing to hoof it uphill and downhill quite a bit.

Old man, old shirt, new selfie

Loyal program and blog follower Marty McGowan (Class of 1973) sent this serious-looking selfie, with the caption that "this shirt may be older than several members of the current team." A true statement!

Monmouth Invitational: Men's results

Like the previous post, these results were culled from cell photos. We'll update if some of the times aren't 100 pct accurate, but this is close enough. Getting first place is always excellent, but the goal is for a similar outcome against these same teams on this course in six weeks. We're pleased with the efforts today, but with the knowledge that we have much work to do before we return here next month.

Henry Mercer/Monmouth Invitational

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Holmdel Park, Holmdel, NJ

Men’s team standings

1-Marist 60, 2-Siena 68, 3-Monmouth 75, 4-Manhattan 127, 5-Quinnipiac 129, 6-Rider 136, 7-East Stroudsburg 147, 8-Fairfield 230, 9-Seton Hall 298, 10-St. Peter’s 343.

Men’s individual results, 8km

4-Brendan Dearie 26:32.00

9-James Draney 26:43.84

13-Graham Strzelecki 27:01.48

15-Alexander Hogue 27:03.55

19-James Moehringer 27:10.85

24-Patrick Kutch 27:20.82

26-Matthew Hartman 27:24.45

33-Dominic Mastromatteo 27:37.30

34-Daniel Czop 27:38.23

37-Aidan Sweeney 27:44.92

41-Elias Platanias 27:49.39

44-Conor Stack 27:53.21

56-Brad Rynkowski 28:10.43

57-Matthew Ronan 28:23.43

71-Paul Sandford 28:47.41

82-Vincent Tripi 29:04.92

84-Marc Bakia 29:12.24

91-Ramsey Little 29:19.37

97-Jon Kittredge 29:30.43

103-Chris Courts 29:35.55

105-Sam Goldzweig 29:40.93

108-Charles Roy 29:48.90

109-Ian Wiesinger 29:51.69

145 finishers

Monmouth Invitational: Women's results

Official results have been slow to post, but we were able to glean these results from cell phone photos (note: mine stink, but fortunately others are OK). We were dominantly ahead of all the MAAC schools in the meet, which was our goal. Princeton is a national-caliber team, so no shame in finishing behind them. In all, a good day.

Henry Mercer/Monmouth Invitational

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Holmdel Park, Holmdel, NJ

Women’s team standings

1-Princeton 19, 2-Marist 54, 3-Quinnipiac 98, 4-Siena 109, 5-Monmouth 167, 6-Rider 171, 7-Seton Hall 206, 8-Manhattan 225, 9-Fairfield 256, 10-Wagner 289, 11-East Stroudsburg 312, 12-St. Francis NY 408, 13-St. Peter’s 428

Women’s individual results, 5km

3-Gianna Tedeschi 18:17.34

8-Gianna Mastromatteo 18:43.68

11. Ali Bartolotta 18:55.65

14-Denise Grohn 19:01.49

20-Kathryn Tenney 19:11.79

22-Hayley Collins 19:14.92

34-Boushra Belkhir 19:32.30

47-Talia Cutrone 19:52.41

49-Sara Leavens 19:57.35

50-Rebecca Walters 19:58.48

64-Maria Smith 20:17.15

67-Samantha DeStefani 20:29.95

73-Kayla Sexton 20:37.58

79-Ellie Davis 20:46.57

91-Hunter von Ahn 21:04.04

94-Caitlin McCann 21:06.75

95-Greta Stuckey 21:12.02

100-Sydney Bradle 21:20.21

107-Sinead Heaney 21:36.55

117-Erin Flynn 21:57.08

146 finishers

Sustainability

Like most things in our daily meanderings, it started out as a joke. Being the Idiot Who Holds The Stopwatch, it took me the better part of 29 years to come up with this idea (although, if I recall, Marthy suggested it several years ago). And that is this: A garbage bag in the back of the van with the Gatorade coolers, so that the van is not littered with plastic cups. Let's stop for a second there. Plastic cups. Eeeew, right? Paper cups would be better. Yes, they would, but plastic cups is what we have in the athletic department and so we use them. Anyway, either way, while a messy and smelly van is inevitable, throwing away used cups -- you know, in an actual garbage bag -- is not exactly high tech. And so, after all these years, I finally remembered to get a plastic (eew?) garbage bag for the plastic cups. And, to be honest, I've gotten a bit righteous about it. When I see an athlete randomly throw a used cup carelessly in the back of the van -- you know, like we've ALWAYS done -- I stop them and say, hey, use the garbage bag. One day, randomly, I blurted out: "Hey! Sustainability! Use the garbage bag!" This got some laughs. "Sustainability" is one of those 21st century buzzwords. It's a great concept, so it should not be joked about. Tripi took a picture of this "sustainability" slide (below) and sent it to me, remembering my random rant.

But yesterday, while the guys were out running and I was getting the coolers ready for them at Vassar Farm, I thought about the word "sustainability" a bit more, and not as to how it relates to throwing out used plastic cups. It was September 19. We've been training hard together now for five weeks. The team "vibe" is good, and we are trending in a positive direction -- not surprising for early season, but still nothing to take for granted. However! Fast forward two months from now. We'll still be in cross country season; for our hard-working sprint group, we'll be that much closer to track season. "Sustainability" takes on a new definition. We've built momentum and we are trending positively. Now, we have to sustain that. For the next two months and beyond. I gave this "sustainability" lecture on a picture-perfect day (we've had a lot of them lately). Two months from now, we need to be just as fresh and strong and positive -- even if it's freezing cold, spitting rain or snow flurries, wind whipping. Sustainability. It's not just about throwing out plastic cups.

What's next: Monmouth meet

Our next meet of the season is Saturday at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, NJ -- site of the MAAC Championships on Saturday, Nov. 2. Monmouth is hosting its 25th annual Henry Mercer Monmouth Invitational. It will be a very early bus departure for us (5 a.m.). Race times are as follows:

Women's 5km = 9:30 a.m.
Men's 8km = 10:15 a.m.

It will be warm, it will be hilly, and it will be early-season cross country at its best. Hope to see you there.

If it's free ...

One of our former athletes, loyal alum Conor Shelley, had a great saying: "If it's free, it's me." Shelley never met a hotel continental breakfast that he didn't raid, loading up his backpack with boxes of Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes (never anything healthy for the big man). Any buffet meal on campus always meant Conor would be loading up on bags of potato chips, water bottles, etc. Well, Shelley doesn't know our current team members, but his legacy continued on today's 9-miler in the sun. These boys pictured -- Graham, Elias, Jungle Jim -- were in the latter stages of the run, heading to North Field for some hard strides. As they ran through the Route 9 tunnel, there was some campus group handing out free (key word!) popsicles and ice cream. Fortunately, these guys had the good sense not to get ice cream before their strides (as far as I know!). Besides, popsicles travel better. Of course, the Old Man (me) had to hold their icy treats while they did their strides.

In other news! Elias' treasured dog, Chip, celebrated a birthday yesterday (age x7 unknown). Chip deserves a shout-out here because apparently he is an avid blog reader (again, according to Elias). There you go. Happy birthday, Chip.

Bad selfie, great afternoon

We are in the midst of some glorious late summer/early fall weather. Chilly mornings and evenings and delightful days and no rain. Nothing better than this. Feels like we are out in San Diego with Spencer! This afternoon, I snuck out of women's XC practice early to head up to Mills Mansion for our youngest son James' first modified XC meet. It was deja vu all over again (as Yogi Berra would say), since this is where we came so many times to watch our oldest son Joey during his 6-year scholastic XC career. The cycle resumes! And wouldn't you know, one of our favorite and treasured alums -- Kenny Walshak -- was there, coaching his Dover Dragons team. This typically terrible selfie was taken by me (of course).

A day in the life: Farm Lane

Perhaps our favorite XC workout venue is Farm Lane in Hyde Park. On a picture-perfect late summer/early fall day, our boys had a hard but productive midday at the Lane. Here they are after the workout.

Dutchess County Classic: Results and more photos

Sorry it has taken a few days to cobble these together. A great day for our Forever Foxes. On and off the course. We hope to have even more alumni representation next year at the Classic!

Classic results

Half marathon men

1-Palmer Weimann 1:14:47

2-Mike Kennedy 1:15:03

3-Dan Hillman 1:17:55

5-Omar Perez 1:19:42

17. Ken Walshak 1:27:37

41-Jerome Lester Strum-Bucket 1:35:07

43-Billy Hild 1:35:33

102-Todd Coulson 1:48:16

Half marathon, women

2-Bianca Luparello 1:30:39

3-Emily Franko 1:31:16

9-Annie Gould 1:35:52

21-Cheryl Fil Martin 1:43:57

24-Jenna Robinson 1:46:20

5km, women

2-Kerry Gaye 18:50

9-Catherine Ferreri 22:43

5km, men

10-Riley Hughes 19:16

11-Eamonn Beers 19:18

Ned Kenyon 20:57 (second in 40-49)

Pete Startz 24:51

JT Lasker 26:24

Dutchess County Classic: Lurch!

We have many loyal alums, none more loyal than Lurch ("Todd Coulson"). Lurch graduated more than 20 years ago (1996) and has stayed connected to the program every year since then. Whenever we ask Lurch to represent the program in any fashion, he always answers YES and he is always there for us. Sunday's Dutchess County Classic is no exception. Running in an "old school" Marist Alumni Racing Team singlet, I said, "Lurch, you need a new singlet!" He replied: "Pete, you've been saying that for YEARS." And so the old coach finally remembered to give Lurch a new-school MART singlet, at Bucket's house. Knowing Lurch, he will continue to wear it with pride, well into middle age. We love Lurch and he loves us right back.

Dutchess County Classic: Half-marathon sweep

We are extremely proud of our young alums who dominated the half marathon on Sunday. Palmer Weimann, Mike Kennedy and Dan Hillman -- all of whom graduated a few months ago -- took the top three spots. Omar Perez, their former teammate and also a proud alum, was fifth place. Me and the boys, reunited again for a Sunday long run for them. Great stuff. We'll update in the coming days with more results and photos.

Dutchess County Classic: 39 Shamrock Circle

We had a GREAT day -- a Classic day? -- at the 41st annual Dutchess County Classic on Sunday. For the first time, the race was held from Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, a close ride from our home in Hyde Park and our second home at Marist College. We had a GREAT alumni turnout. And once again, our loyal alum Mr. Bucket ("David Swift") hosted a fantastic post-Classic party at his house in the Town of Poughkeepsie. Swifty was originally scheduled to race the marathon, but a persistent and nagging leg injury forced him to scale back to the half marathon. Just as well, as we didn't want him to be late to his own party! We are extremely appreciative of Swifty's hosting in what has become a fine tradition that we hope will continue for many more years. Alumni, friends and family from many generations made their way to 39 Shamrock Circle on a beautiful late summer Sunday. Neat.

Siena in pictures: Coach Chuck in charge

Siena in pictures: Women's action shots

Siena in pictures: Coach Pete 'action' shots

Siena in pictures: Men's action shots

Siena in pictures: Women's huddle

This was my wife Heidi's favorite picture!

Siena Invitational: Unsung heroes of the day

At the beginning of preseason camp a few weeks ago, I started a new tradition of naming an "unsung hero of the day," usually at our practices that feature high-quality workouts. I culled this idea from one of my favorite podcasts, NPR's Hidden Brain. The host, Shankar Vedantam, ends each episode with an "unsung hero" ... Well, for our meet on Saturday, the Unsung Heroes are Ken and Marcie Tibbetts. They have taken over the organization of our team tailgates, a mammoth and awesome job to be sure. But they went above and beyond on Saturday, leaving their home on eastern Long Island at 4:30 a.m. to set up for this meet -- even though their son, Chris, wasn't racing! How cool is THAT!

Siena Invitational in pictures: Reuniting with an old friend

It was great to see my old friend and teammate from the mid-1980s at Marist, Mike Carey, on Saturday at the Siena meet. Mike has forged an outstanding career as a radio newsman in his home area of the Capital District. If you are "friends" with me on Facebook, check out the nearly 200 photos from the meet that he posted. For those of you who are not connected with me on Facebook, or shun social media (I'm OK with that!), I'll post some photos here soon. This is a photo of me and Mike before the race. Thanks for your support and loyalty to the Running Red Foxes, Mike!

Siena Invitational: Women's results

This was yet another dominant performance by our dominant women's team -- six of the top 10 finishers, 10 of the top 20 finishers -- as we started the year with two meet victories. Like the men, the course ran a bit slow. Here's a quote from Coach Chuck that he gave to GoredFoxes.com: “We went into this meet with key points of emphasis and the women executed the game plan to perfection. We wanted to race better than last week and we did. Our women talked about how they were happy with our team performance but not satisfied. We must continue to work hard every day and stay hungry. That’s the only way we will achieve our ultimate goals.”

Siena Invitational

Crossings at Colonie, Loudonville, NY

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Women’s team standings

1-Marist 23, 2-Siena 66, 3-UAlbany 67, 4-Rider 75, 5-Saint Rose 153, 6-Union 168

Women’s individual results, 5km course

2. Alexandra Bartolotta 18:27.3

3. Gianna Tedeschi 18:33.5

5. Hayley Collins 18:49.0

6. Denise Grohn 19:03.1

7. Gianna Mastromatteo 19:06.7

10. Kathryn Tenney 19:13.6

13. Rebecca Walters 19:18.6

15. Maria Smith 19:24.1

17. Boushra Belkhir 19:45.6

20. Sara Leavens 19:59.1

21. Samantha DeStefani 20:06.6

24. Talia Cutrone 20:21.8

25. Caitlin McCann 20:22.1

26. Kayla Sexton 20:25.8

29. Greta Stuckey 20:35.4

31. Ellie Davis 20:43.1

35. Jill Laliberte 21:13.5

36. Sydney Bradle 21:15.1

38. Hunter von Ahn 21:29.6

60 finishers

Siena invitational: Men's results

It was a day for youth. Seven of our top eight finishers were freshmen. Kudos to our first four freshmen for breaking 27:00 in their first 8km. The course ran slow today -- it was sunny and warm, and it's just not that fast of a course. Of our 16 finishers, 10 were freshmen. We held our own in the team standings too. Pretty neat.

Siena Invitational

Crossings at Colonie, Loudonville, NY

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Men’s team standings

1-Siena 34, 2-Rider 53, 3-Marist 58, 4-UAlbany 70, 5-Union 167, 6-St. Rose 169

Men’s individual results, 8km course

7. Ramsey Little 26:26.6

9. Brendan Dearie 26:33.7

13. Matthew Hartman 26:52.1

15. Dominic Mastromatteo 26:57.1

19. Aidan Sweeney 27:30.8

24. Daniel Czop 27:41.4

26. Vincent Tripi 27:45.0

30. Jon Kittredge 28:04.6

31. Matthew Ronan 28:09.9

32. Sam Goldzweig 28:16.8

38. Brad Rynkowski 28:36.2

45. Aidan Pech 29:00.1

46. Chris Courts 29:01.4

53. Ian Wiesinger 29:20.9

56. Charles Roy 29:32.6

58. Matthew Hawker 29:51.4

83 finishers

What's next: Siena Invitational

We will be at the Crossings of Colonie tomorrow morning for the Siena Invitational, a small, early-season meet featuring UAlbany, Marist, Rider, Siena, Union and St. Rose.

Men's 8km is at 9:45 a.m.
Women's 5km is at 10:30 a.m. 

The address for the course, which was site of the 2018 MAAC XC Championships last October, is:

580 Albany Shaker Road, Loudonville, NY 12211. 

Hope to see you there.

Scene from practice: Tempo start

A New Paltz resident snapped this photo and emailed it to me this afternoon, saying she appreciated us being there using the trail for its intended purpose. We love this. We rely on local community members to support our endeavors, since we are out in the field every day. The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail is among our favorite venues. Just wish it were closer. This is the start of the tempo; Tibbetts was gearing up for a more intense interval workout. Great day for running, cloudy and relatively cool. Neat.

Scene from practice: Snake

Spotted near our start-finish area off Huguenot Street in New Paltz along the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail. Draney was not pleased. Yikes.

Alumni at home meet

They are forever on our minds and in our hearts and on Saturday, they were back in town. Our treasured young alums, back at the Farm to cheer on their former teammates and to wonder who all these new freshmen were. They were home again, and they always have a home here.

Me and the trees (The trees and I?)

The men’s cross country practice this morning was lonely again. After having an assistant coach to keep me company for the past three XC seasons, it was back to me, myself and I again at the men’s practice. Coach Chuck was back to his teaching job for the school year. Last year, I had Nick Cruz as an assistant and for the two years prior to that, our program was fortunate to have Erica Maker as an assistant. Both added much to the program and both made my middays so much better. Erica is just a flat-out great coach. I learned a lot from her, and bouncing ideas off her allowed me to expand my coaching mindset. Young Cruz had no coaching experience, but he has an analytical mind and it made for good conversations and a much-needed sounding board for someone often set in his ways. But now, today, it was just me and the trees (the trees and I?). At one point, on this beautiful summer day at the Cator Loop at the Roosevelt National Historic Site, a tourist came by and started talking with me. I thanked him, saying it beats talking to the trees. “When you start hearing them trees talk back to you,” the old guy said, “it might be time to reconsider what you’re doing.” I’m not there yet. The trees were decent enough company today, but I sure do miss my coaching companions.

School night

For the first time in more than three months, tonight is a “school night” in our house. This means our younger two children – rising 12^th-grader Natalie and rising 8^th-grader James – cannot leisurely sleep in tomorrow morning; and trust me, there's been plenty of THAT around here. There are buses to catch, first bells to make, homerooms to get acquainted with, as a new school year dawns. It seems like last week that I was fretting over the start of summer break for them (well, especially James), and how we would keep from hearing the familiar “I’m bored” refrain of summer. Well, somehow the end of June quickly became the beginning of September. And here we are. Natalie is ready for her final year of high school. James? Well, he recently described today (the last day of summer break) as being “one of the two worst days” of the year (the other being the day after Christmas). We have had some middle school issues with our youngest son. Seventh grade was definitely a challenge on many fronts; it was far from smooth sailing. With a few blips, though, we’ve had a good summer. We have bonded over baseball – on TV and at Citi Field. He has embraced analytics similarly to me; we discuss pitch counts (both not big fans of it), on-base percentage (both big fans of it), BABIP (I’m a big believer, he doesn’t care), WHIP (important), WAR (what is it good for?), and why New York Mets broadcasts are so vastly superior to New York Yankees broadcasts that they shouldn’t even share the same cable box (simple facts). We have grown to make Jeff McNeil at-bats much-watch TV. Mostly, we have had a common language, something to talk about, after a school year in which his primary mode of communication with me was in grunts and one-word sentences (standard middle-school procedure). So tonight, he (they) needs to go to bed a little earlier. There will be no more late innings for us to share on TV. Summer is in its late innings, with a call to the bullpen for autumn on the way. School night.

Home meet in photos

Thanks to Dawn Collins (Hayley's mom) for these photos of senior day and the women's team, and to John Farrell (a Hyde Park neighbor and friend) who shared with me this photo of the beginning of the men's race. It was a great morning at the Farm.