BU Season Opener: Time schedule

 

Our indoor track season starts on Saturday at the Boston University Season Opener. Rather than re-type the schedule, I took the liberty of snapping a picture of the time schedule. For your convenience, you can see the shadow of my cell phone taking the picture. Yes. I remain a not-smart user of a smart phone. We look forward to kicking off our season at our Happy Place -- the Track and Tennis Center (TTC) at BU. Neat.

Turkey Trot images

 

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend as the holiday season has now begun in earnest. Here are a few Turkey Trot photos -- above, Marist Forever Fox Gary Wiesinger and current Fox John Ignacz with their awards (60-over title and second place overall), as well as teammates Dan Czop and Anthony Citera from a Turkey Trot on Long Island. I'm sure there are many similar photos out there, these were two of ones that I received. Our track season officially starts this week! More details to follow ...

Chucksgiving!

 Another holiday tradition continues! Chuck had the women's team over his house for a pre-Thanksgiving team dinner -- known by one and all as "Chucksgiving" ... neat!

Denise Grohn: Fast winning time on a cold day!

Congrats to Running Red Foxes Alum Denise Grohn for her impressive victory at the Hot Chocolate 15-kilometer race in Columbus, Ohio. Denise is at veterinary school at Ohio State. She completed the 9.3-mile race in a very strong 54 minutes, 57 seconds to take home the victory on a 17-degree morning! That averages out to 5:54 per mile. Pretty good stuff!

Alums at (the) Philly Marathon

We had solid representation at the chilly and breezy Philadelphia Marathon this morning, with the following finishers: Omar Perez (3:01:56), Kent Rinehart (3:49:25); Lurch “Todd Coulson” (3:49:51); Isaiah Miller (4:25:34). Some notes: Omar went in with a goal of sub-2:50. After a few texts with me on Saturday afternoon/evening, he adjusted that to closer to 2:55 and was well on that pace until the latter stages of the race, when the breezy conditions eroded his pace. Still, a solid effort for him! Kent, the dean of admission at Marist, just completed his fourth marathon in a little less than two months; he expertly paced the 3:50 pace group; Lurch (see above, with family) completed his first marathon in 15 years! It was going well … until it wasn’t. Similar story to Omar’s, but Lurch’s wheels came off a bit more dramatically. Still, he called after the race and seemed thrilled to find another marathon finish line after all these years. Can’t add much to Isaiah’s story as I haven’t been in touch with him, but it looked like a long, steady decline over the last half of the race; hopefully, it was still a positive experience (for him). OK!

Welcome to Tracksgiving!

We just concluded a cross country season that featured strong results, a major improvement from 2021 to 2022, and most importantly great hope for future success in future seasons. We are VERY excited about what the future holds -- not just for cross country, but for these upcoming (indoor and outdoor) track seasons in 2023. We have two indoor track meets coming up in early December and then our usual full slate in 2023. Again, we're very excited about the trajectory of the program. And now, we are humbly asking you -- Loyal Running Red Foxes Nation -- for help in increasing opportunities for our current team, by donating to the program. Please see this link to a video that we shot at a recent practice at the Vassar track (our home away from home). Video Guy Nick is awesome, even though he made me take off my ubiquitous hat to show off my usually covered head (I shared this Pro Tip with him: "Hey, Nick, I have a great face for radio!")

Other athletic teams are doing similar fundraising initiatives. Please note that ALL money donated will go to the current team. It will help to increase travel opportunities as well as increase equipment purchases for all athletes. Both are areas in constant need of upgrading. If and when you donate, there is a pull-down menu where you can specifically denote if you want funds to go to the men's program, the women's program or split equally between programs. 

We recently had a meeting with several coaches and advancement office staff. At the meeting, fundraising ideas were exchanged, ways to increase involvement in athletics donations. As usually happens in these (and all) meetings, I mostly remain silent, sitting in a corner sipping my coffee and trying to avoid being called on for comment. However, when I do speak up, it's generally with groan-worthy puns (just like at practice!) and for some reason the term Tracksgiving popped into my head. It was met with dour faces and groans from the otherwise more well-adjusted and mature group. But here in the blogosphere, I'm going with it! So ... we hope you'll contribute to Tracksgiving -- now or in the future -- and we appreciate your loyalty to our team and our program. 

And again, if you want a good laugh, check out this video (which has the fundraising link). OK!

NCAA Northeast Regionals: Men's results

See post below about Ramsey Little's phenomenal race. Alas, cross country is a team sport and our team greatly missed the leadership and strong running from Christopher Paxis, who was sidelined with a foot injury. Seeing Pax in a walking boot and not racing spikes was painful. The rest of the team stepped up to the best of their ability, finishing what has been a mostly positive season on a strong note. Onto track!

NCAA Northeast Regionals
Friday, November 11, 2022
Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY
Men’s individual results, 10km course
14. Ramsey Little 29:49.8 *All Northeast Region, top finish in school history by place and time
132. Gabe Rodriguez 32:06.4
135. Kieran Donnelly 32:08.8
147. Tyler Perry 32:36.4
176. Aidan Pech 33:23.0
180. Daniel Czop 33:36.7
195. Dominic Mastromatteo 34:20.3
227 finishers
Men’s team standings
21^st of 37 teams with 597 points

NCAA Northeast Regionals: Women's results

 Our women fought gamely out there today, as our lineup continued to be short-handed as it has most of the season. These ladies have fight; they also have a great future. A great, great future. Stay tuned ...

NCAA Northeast Regionals
Friday, November 11, 2022
Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY
Women’s individual results, 6km course
113. Samantha Kehler 22:38.4
121. Hannah Belleville 22:46.0
131. Parker O’Brien 22:52.3
175. Adele Alexander 23:32.3
179. Sierra Fisher 23:34.9
194. Anaiya Bobo 23:54.0
216. Kaitlyn Murtagh 24:25.4
252 finishers
Women’s team standings
25^th of 39 teams with 715 points

NCAA Northeast Regionals: A race for the ages

Ramsey Little solidified himself as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) with his incredible performance at today’s NCAA Northeast Regional race at Van Cortlandt Park. In his last race as a Marist cross country runner, Rams finished 14^th and covered the loopy 10km course in a program-record 29:49.8. He steadily moved up the field throughout the race. Here are his places at each split mat: 1.2km = 79^th place; 2.2km = 66^th place; 3.1km = 52nd place; 4.7km = 30^th place; 5.6km = 20^th place; 7.2km = 12^th place; 8.1km = 12^th place; 10km = 14^th place. Yes, he was actually in 12^th place for some of the latter stages of the race and as a result he was within striking distance of a coveted NCAA qualifying position. Note: It is incredibly difficult to make NCAAs as an individual runner. You have to finish in the top 4 individual spots outside of the qualifying teams. And, there are only two automatic qualifying teams! Ramsey’s race fell short of that goal, but little else. His has been an up-and-down season – but the ups have been truly remarkable! The Paul Short 23:34 time; the top-10 finish at MAACs; and now THIS, caps it all. The previous best finish at regionals was 25^th by Mike Melfi … way back in 1998, also at Van Cortlandt Park. Quimes DelaCruz was 26^th back in 2010. It’s just really rare to be this far up … and Ramsey was WAY far up. And while comparisons are tricky, we can say with great confidence that the depth of the Northeast Region is stronger than it has ever been – in terms of quality teams and quality runners. Our boy got himself on the podium today, in a year in which getting up there has never been so difficult. Nicely done, Ramsey!

NCAA Northeast Regionals

 Cross country concludes with the NCAA Northeast Regionals on Friday at Van Cortlandt Park. We are hoping the meet can get done before the tropical rainstorm hits the area. It will be close. 

Women's 6km race = 11a
Men's 10km race = 12 noon

NYC Marathon results

Thanks for very loyal blog follower Billy Hild for compiling this list of NYC Marathon finishers from the Marist Alumni (Forever Foxes) vault, assisting a very busy and stressed out Old Coach (#me). If any alums are missing from this, please reach out to me via email (runhed246@hotmail.com) or text (845 309 3640) and we will post. It was a crazy warm and humid day and that greatly impacted the results, with several outstanding runners either DNFing or crashing/cramping hard in the unseasonable weather. OK!

 

Pat Rynkowski - 2:41:34 (126th overall)

Chris Rivas - 2:42:31 (135th overall)

Bianca Luparello - 3:30:58 (614th overall, women)

Jenna Robinson - 3:47:55

Joe Miller - 4:21:43

Tony Ferreri - 4:31:01

Ali Bartolotta - 4:27:37

Olivia Jaquith - 5:07:58 

Rachel Lichtenwalner - 5:19:56

Miy Mahran - 6:01:34

 

In the case of Joey and Ali, they basically had to walk in the last half of the race. Joey's post-race text/play-by-play was a classic Joey Mills rant. While I would love to share it here with you ... I think we'll pass on that. But in all seriousness, he faced a world of hurt and it's remarkable that he kept going. A lot of runners faced a lot of hurt out there!

Blogoween: Morning lift

 

At this morning's sprinter lift at 5:45a, our women and men decided to get dressed up for Halloween (a few hours late, yes, but good enough!). Sophomores Kiana Pathirana and Marissa Sciotto decided to get dressed up as some aging coach who likes to wear flannel shirts, flannel neck gaiters, reading glasses stretched out on top of a cap, and tube socks. Neat?

The best Plan B ever

After a great day for the team at the MAAC Championships on Saturday up in the Albany area, it was great to unwind and de-stress for a few minutes with our loyal and loving alums at Plan Bee Brewery and Farm in Poughkeepsie. Upon arriving back at the McCann Center parking lot on Saturday afternoon, there were the remnants of a raucous Homecoming Weekend celebration. This low-key gathering (an easy 8-minute drive from campus) was more my speed, after an emotionally draining (in a good way!) MAAC meet. Love them all. OK.