RACES
It was a perfect day at Cherry Blossom--the weather was ideal, the trees were in full bloom, and it was a glorious setting for a race--so what could have gone wrong? We found out the hard way, and although the race organizers did an outstanding job of adapting on the fly to unforeseeable circumstances, I couldn't help but feel a little cheated by the short course. We'll never feel confident of the actual distance contested, nor will we ever know what would have happened if the race had gone off as planned, and that's a shame. But what I do know is that our crew made the most of the situation, and we had some excellent performances. Teal, Maura, Emily, Balmer, Wertz, Charlie, and Zak almost surely would have run PRs, and Outlaw would have been close. As it was, they'll all have to be satisfied knowing that they ran hard and competed well, and that the PRs are coming soon. Further down the chain of causation, Kieran would surely have run a PR if the course was accurate and if his shoe had not come untied, causing him to convene an unplanned conference of at least 30 seconds with the GRC brain trust on the side of the road at mile 2. Though not on PR pace, Kristin and Dave O ran very solid races as they work their way back to full fitness. Our entire Cherry Blossom crew will be back, better than ever, in the coming weeks.
We never have to worry about the validity of the marks on the track, and we had some excellent performances at Bucknell and Hopkins. Cabell won the unseeded 5,000 at Bucknell in 14:47.4, which was not only a PR, it was his first PR at any distance since 2012. Cabell closed in 29 for the final 200, and he clearly has more gas in the tank, so we're going to see many more PRs from him in the very near future. Also at Bucknell, Stewart ran 15:04, for an amazing 33 second PR. Stewart was so far into uncharted territory that he was probably too conservative for most of the race, but he knew what to do when he heard the bell, as he closed in 64 for the final 400. At Hopkins, Matt Rand ran 15:03 in extremely windy conditions. Matt had the benefit of excellent pace-making from Phil for 3k, but once he was on his own the wind hindered him greatly. Still, it was an excellent tuneup for the 10,000 at Penn Relays. On the women's side, Susan ran solo from the gun and struggled with the wind in the 5000 but got in a good effort, and Tina ran a solid 4:51 for 1500. They'll both be back for more in the coming weeks.
WORKOUT
We're at BCC on Wednesday for our normal 7:15 start, so meet for the warmup at 6:30.
I'll see you Wednesday at BCC.
Jerry
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