Wednesday Workout

From Coach Jerry:

We had some excellent performances this weekend, led by Patrick Murphy’s 4th place finish at the Frederick half marathon in 1:15:16. Murph was in the best shape of his life going into Boston, and he had a huge PR written all over him. When it became clear that the horrid conditions in Boston were conducive only to intense suffering and certain failure, Murph’s plan B was to give it a go in Frederick. While the time is not indicative of Murph’s fitness (he ran 1:13:29 at the National half several weeks ago), I am more than pleased with the effort. Murph made the best of a bad situation, and he will be back to racing later this spring, when he will take advantage of the strength he developed while training for Boston.

We also had some strong performances on the track at the Maryland twilight meet. In the 800, Chuck and Witty both went under the old club record, with Chuck nipping Witty in the last 50 meters. Chuck’s 1:54:08 is the new club record, and Witty’s 1:54.37 was his second big PR in 8 days. In the 1500, Jason had the breakthrough he’s been working towards for the last year, running 4:01.52. While Jason is still learning how to compete at this level, his workouts demonstrate that he is fit to run much faster, and we will see many more PRs from him in the future. Sam B ran another solid race in the 1500, and Dave Wertz made a succesful 1500 debut at the age of 36, running a very impressive 4:08.62. On the women’s side, high school phenom Meghan ran an excellent 4:51 1500. But the star of the night was Danielle, who ran 5:12 in the alumni mile, closing with a blazing last lap of 72. Because she was fulfilling her dual responsibilities as coach and meet director, Danielle had almost no time to warm up, making her run that much more impressive. Well done to all!

We’re back at BCC on Wednesday. For the men, we’ll have two options. The track group, who are racing at Swarthmore on Monday, will do 8 x 400 with a 3:00 recovery, 2 @ 68, 2 @ 66, 2 @ 64, 2 @ 62. The road group, which is pretty much everyone else, will do mile repeats. Dickson is going to do 5 reps, 5:30, 5:20, 5:10, 5:00, 4:50, in his final hard workout before he dominates the Cleveland marathon, and I’d like the road group guys to do as much of that as possible to support Dix. If you have any questions about the workout, give me a holler.

Let Jerry know if you plan to run any of the road races in May and June I identified in my email last week. I’m still waiting for one or two of the men to volunteer to be the designated winner for the Fathers Day 8k.

Finally, mark your calender for the season ending party/happy hour on May 26.

I’ll see you at BCC on Wednesday.