I've had a fairly busy week and also have a bunch of stuff to get done this weekend. Given my time constraints, I'm going to break from tradition, speak in the first person, and just give a short summary of what has gone on the last two weeks.
Coach Pizzulli Runs Half Marathon
Coach Pizzulli competed in the Freedom's Run Half Marathon on October 1 in West Virginia. The race was run in mixed conditions, with rain rolling in about half an hour before the race start. It slowed down as the race began, but picked up again toward the end of the race.
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| Photo: Innovative Timing Systems, LLC |
Pizzulli ran a time of 1:54:12.6 and finished 110th overall and 11th of 123 in her age group. Of the 787 runners who started the race, only 682 finished, making for 105 total DNFs.
"I was not expecting the course to be as hilly as it was (I was told [there was only] one major hill). The first hill we hit at mile three was about a mile and a half long, going up about 940 something feet (basically a little under 1000 ft elevation). Rolling hills continued the rest of the course.
"I was not able to begin training until August, so I only "trained" for two months- my longest run in those two months was nine miles. Along the way I had two slight set backs with some minor injuries (foot and right hamstring).
"Keeping this in mind, I try to remind myself that it was just one race. I can do it again, get better training, and get a time that I am satisfied with."
Given the brutality of course and her lack of training time, the mere fact that Coach Pizzulli finished is impressive, let alone in under two hours. Full race results can be found here.
Aberdeen vs. Edgewood vs. Red Lion vs. Tome vs. West Nottingham @ Bo Manor
Our fourth race was a six-school meet at Bohemia Manor High School. Both our Girls and Boys teams did well; the Girls took third-place out of four teams (Aberdeen and West Nottingham did not have Girls teams) and the Boys took second-place out of six. It was also a challenging course, and unfortunately, Micah had to pull out of the race with shin splints. We've also lost Katelyn for the season due to a stress fracture suffered before the race, which is a shame, given her decision to join our team at the last minute.
Joshua ran another fantastic race, finishing sixth overall in 18:47.01. Our fastest girl, Jessie, also finished sixth overall with a time of 22:54.91. If you would like a copy of the full race results, feel free to email me.
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Battling Max for the lead in a dual meet last season
(Photo: TOCS Facebook) |
Personally, it was an okay race for me. I finished 19th overall but probably could have been one spot higher had I waited longer to make my move on a Bo Manor runner. I passed him too early, ran out of gas and he passed me back, finishing about five seconds ahead of me.
It was also nice to get a chance to race against Tall Oaks' former MIL rivals, Tome and West Nottingham. It's tough to see one of Tome's fastest runners, Cody McDaniel, struggling with a knee injury right now. Cody and Josh were close rivals the past couple of seasons, though injuries have made it difficult for him to maintain that pace.
Maxwell Green Wright was one of my rivals last year and has become WNA's fastest runner by far. I outpaced him all three races we ran against them last season, but he's beaten both times we've run against them this season. Max is a fantastic all around athlete; he's also a far better basketball player than I am and excels as a lacrosse player as well.
2016 Joe O'Neill XC Invitational
This was our fifth race of the season, and it was by far the largest high school race I have ever been a part of, perhaps the largest race period (though the Reindeer Run may come close). The meet was held at Bellevue State Park, which is where we ran the Howard Laws 5K races this summer. Mr. Laws himself was even at the race yesterday helping log the race results!
To my surprise, this really is a fast course. It has a little bit of everything. It starts out on Bellevue's wide open, one-mile gravel track before heading onto grass and into the woods, then coming back out onto the grass fields before hitting the pavement and finally crossing the original gravel track to sprint to the finish on the grass.
I could not be more pleased with my performance. If you had told me this summer that I was going to come back in October and run the exact same course in 19:25, I would have laughed in your face. But I did it, running my fastest 5K time in nearly over a year and my second fastest ever. Several of our runners ran personal best times yesterday, too many to count!
Full race results can be found here (thanks for the link Katie!).
Looking Ahead
This was the first week we've had multiple races in the same week. The team has been instructed to get a short run in this morning and take Sunday off to fully recover as much as possible. We still have a lot of work to do to prepare for November but I'm already proud of what this team has accomplished and how far we've come in the last two months. Until next time...Go Lions!
