Weekly Review and Workout

From Coach Jerry:

Saturday was a great day for both the GRC and the Irish, as we had several excellent performances. While there were many candidates for the award, the coveted GRC Athlete of the Week goes to Beth Young for her huge PR of 1:22:54 in the race formerly known as the National Half Marathon. Beth’s time is quite impressive standing alone, as it is a 90 second PR. But what makes her performance truly remarkable is that she had major abdominal surgery less than six months ago, and complications from the surgery precluded her from running for several weeks after that. To not only be back in action, but running a gigantic PR, is nothing less than inspirational.

The other outstanding performances this weekend include: 1) Dave Burnham’s PR of 1:09:07 in the half. Dave also is coming back from a medically-induced layoff, and his performance bodes well for the spring season and beyond. Dave is a great talent, and having him in PR shape will be a great boon to our hopes for a top-10 finish at Club Nationals in the fall. 2) Murph’s huge PR of 1:13:29 in the half. According to GRC historian and sage Jake Klim, this was undoubtedly Murph’s best race in a GRC singlet. And Murph is not done yet, as he’s getting ready for a breakthrough in Boston. 3) 15 year-old phenom Meghan Lockett’s 10:24 3k at UMBC. Meghan is a star in the making, and it's going to be a pleasure for us to watch her progress. 4) Sam’s 8:24 3k at UMBC. Sam ran the race as a workout, and is ready to rewrite the GRC record book once he gets into the heart of his season. 5) Luke’s big PR of 8:52 for 3k at UMBC. Luke had never broken 9 minutes, and he did so with a bang on Saturday. And his leg on the 4 x 800 was good enough for him to have a realistic shot at making BCC’s JV. I’ve pulled some strings to arrange a tryout, so keep your fingers crossed. 6) Seabass’s 1:12:25 half in Virginia Beach. For a guy that only runs a few times a week, that is impressive indeed. Well done to all!

We’re going to have several workout options for the men this week. The A group is going to do 4 x mile with a 3 minute rest in 4:40, 4:35, 4:30, 4:25. The track group of Jason, Sam B, and Luke, and whoever else wants to join them, will do 800 of each of the A group reps, meaning 2:20, 2:17, 2:15, 2:12, and then do 4 x 400 afterwards. The B/Cherry Blossom/Boston group will do 5 x mile, with a 2 minute rest, in 5:15, 5:10, 5:05, 5:00, 4:55. We can adapt any of these workouts as needed to suit those of you who don’t fall squarely into one of these categories.

I’ll send the women’s workout separately.

Finally, a couple of administrative notes. 1) There is a track meet at BCC on Wednesday. I would expect that they will be done by the time we start to warm up, but if the meet runs long, please stay out of their way until the track is clear. 2) We will have a weekend workout that most of you will want to attend to tune up for the big weekend of racing that follows. Because most of us will be participating in Wiggy-palooza on Saturday night, we’ll have practice on Saturday morning. We can’t use BCC, but I’m working on an alternate location, so stay tuned.

See you Wednesday.
Jerry