Long run, smiles

 Thanks to Kutchy (rising senior Patrick Kutch, on the left) for sending me this excellent, post-long-run photo of him and Marist Running Alum Michael Kennedy, now a mid-Hudson Valley resident (Kennedy moved back to the area and lives in Pleasant Valley!). Kutchy texted me this picture with the hopes of it being posted here; it also kick-started my mind to get back into blog-posting mode. OK!

Is anybody out there?

Yeah. It’s been quite a while (3 weeks?!) since the last post here – in part because of inertia (just didn’t post for a bit) and in part because last week we were away for our annual week at Lake George for family vacation. It rained all but one day while we were there. While this might seem like a bummer, we made the best of it and it was a great week. And it was an extra treat to reconnect with loyal Marist Running alum Tommy Lipari and his family, who were staying just two miles down the road from us, as well as connecting for a quick breakfast sandwich with equally loyal Marist Running alum Billy Hild, who was staying with his family a bit further up the lake for the week.

The difference between returning home from last year’s family trip as opposed to this year was stark, in terms of our Marist Running universe. Within days upon returning home in July 2020, it was announced that our entire fall sports schedule (including, of course, cross country) would be shuttered because of you-know-what. A year later, you-know-what still lurks out there on the fringes, and yet we are eagerly anticipating and planning for our first preseason XC camp in two years. Report date for our team is Wednesday, August 18, with first practice planned for Thursday, August 19. Once again, we will host our season-opening meet at Vassar Farm on Saturday, September 4. And as of now, it looks like we will have eight (8!) teams in attendance, which could be an all-time high for us. Highly neat.

Yes, we’ve had a lot of rain this summer – specifically in July – but for the first time in quite a while, our short-term future looks bright. Let’s keep it that way!

Team Wiesinger sizzles on 4th of July

The father-son Marist Running team of Gary Wiesinger and Ian Wiesinger took the father-son team title at the Cranford (NJ) Jaycees Firecracker 4-miler on the 4^th of July. Gary (Class of 1981) is still running strong in his early 60s. He won the 60-64 division by two minutes (!) in 27:52.4, a pace of 6:58 for 4 miles. Ian, a rising junior on the Marist cross country team, was seventh overall in 22:26.5, an average of 5:36 per mile. This was some welcome holiday race results news – Four Sure!

What we missed: Special alumni weddings

Coach Horton left me a funny voicemail recently, asking me if I was enjoying the cooler weather here back East after record-setting temperatures out in Oregon! To which my reflex reply would be, “well, it’s more humid here than it was out there.” Which of course leads me to one of my favorite tabloid headlines of all time: “It’s not the heat. It’s the stupidity.” Fortunately for all of us, the heat and humidity are breaking very soon. I’m sure it’ll be back. It’s summer, after all. It is what it is.

While we were out in Oregon for several days, unfortunately we missed out on two alumni weddings – both held on Saturday, June 26, same day as our racewalkers’ competition. Michael Schab (Florida Gulf Coast, Fort Myers area) and Matt Panebianco (Maine Coast, Kennebunkport area) tied the knot and both ceremonies were well attended by our beloved Forever Foxes. This is not the first time we have missed alumni weddings because of special track trips – most recently, it was Brian Townsend’s wedding five years ago, while we were at USATF Juniors at an equally blazing Fresno area venue (Clovis, California).

Speaking of Forever Foxes, Billy Hild was out in the Pacific Northwest at the same time as us, and we connected on Thursday evening at Hayward Field and then again on Friday morning for a jog at Pre’s Trail. Hild pointed out that it was the first time we had ever run together in all the years we’ve known each other. He was nice, took it easy on me, although the low-8s pace felt peppy to me in the blazing morning sun.