Club News
Results from River Rumble; Greg Pece Runs Mt Fuji; Keith Moore and Ron McGraw to Captain Fall Race Teams; Distance Runners & Adventure
New Members
Hannah Howe, 26, of Arlington. Currently training for the Marine Corps Marathon, Hannah has running with us on Sundays, and acquitting herself excellently. Hannah posted a 33:34 at the Rockville Twilighter in Mid-July. We welcome her aboard, and look forward to training with her.
Race Results
Rockville Twilighter, July 15th
Below are the results for members who ran the Rockville Twilighter, but were not mentioned two weeks ago. Apologies to all three gentlemen
126) Jay Wind 30:28 (2nd veteran)
259) Robert Platt 34:10
330) Dr. James Scarborough 35:24
River Rumble Half Marathon, July 30th
A number of our runners did very well at the River Rumble Half Marathon, in Riley’s Lock MD on Sunday, July 30th. Below is a listing of their times.
Women
1) Patty Fulton 1:24:52
15) Katherine Turner 1:43:24
17)Jennifer Kulynych 1:44:27
Men
5) Kirk Baird 1:17:50
14) Steve Ward 1:23:46
32) Jascha Fields 1:29:44
No race reports from this bunch. We trust that a cat has not caught their tongues.
DCRRC Bon Air 5K, Arlington VA, July 27th
Our friends Mark Drosky and Jay Wind finished 18:38 and 18:40 to finish 12th and 13th at the DCRRC Bon Air 5K in Arlington on July 27th. This is part of the Bunion Derby Series that DCRRC sponsors.
Mt. Fuji Half Marathon, The Land of the Rising Sun
Another in our series of race reports from distant climes. This report is from from USAF Captain Greg Pece, presently stationed in Japan. Captain Pece was transferred there nine months ago for reasons unknown. Perhaps to deal with Godzilla. Anyway, Greg recently had a hair raising adventure running the Mt Fuji Half Marathon. Reports Captain Pece.
“At about 0722, 8 mins before the [Mt Fuji Half Marathon}, there was a race announcement being made on a bull horn from the starting line, and I was ignoring it. I mean, you can’t even hear these things in a race in America, so the fact that it was in Japanese caused me to totally tune out…until I heard the entire crowd gasp. To make a long story short, they had to stop the race at the 5th station….or at 2308 meters as opposed to the 3300 meter peak. It was far too dangerous due to thunderstorms, high winds and heavy rain.
Of course I didn’t know this, but after about 6 miles of constant climbing, up the mountain, in a torrential downpour with thunder crashing all around on a trail with water rushing down, I knew this was “bad.” I hit 15 km in 2 hours, thinking I would have to quit or I would die trying to climb up in this kind of weather to 12,000 feet. I figured they wouldn’t cancel a race in Japan—they would just let you try it and die or something. Well, the 5th station was it, and quite a few racers were in really bad shape at that point..freezing cold and muscles locked up.
I really felt fine…just kind of tired and cold, and rather relieved I didn’t have to even make to decision to continue to the top. I was surprised by the fact I had much more in the way of fluids and clothing with me, as opposed to many of the Japanese who where decked out for a 10km race as opposed to a mountain trail run, and probably knew a lot more about the race and weather forecast than me. I left with a bit of a hollow feeling. I ran well, but I was hoping to have claimed a summit of Fuji. I don’t really want to go out and hike it; I’d prefer to finish it in the race. We finished up with a 1 1/2 hour detour at a Onsen (Japanese hot bath), relaxing our aching muscles in various small stone pools and saunas–highly recommended.”
Good going Greg. Glad you emerged unscathed!
Greg Pece, after the Mt. Fuji race. Frankly, this is about the largest darn trophy we’ve ever seen.
News of the Club
Two Team Captains for the Fall
Over the past week, two members have volunteered to organize teams for fall races. Ron McGraw will be captain of our team at the Pennsylvania Avenue Mile team, while Keith Moore will captain WRC’s JFK 50 Miler team. Many thanks to both gentlemen
The next nut we must crack is getting an all women’s team together for a fall race. We are aiming to do more for our women runners. We have some real terrific ones, and it would be excellent assemble an all women’s team. If anyone has any ideas, please email President Steve Tappan at wininkona@aol.com
Speed Workouts
The first speed workouts of the summer/fall session went off without a hitch at Georgetown these past two Tuesdays. Among the attendees were Kirk Baird, Katherine Turner, Lisa Lipke, Bryon Powell, Yancy Hall, Steve Ward, Keith Moore and David Keating. Thanks to Kirk for organizing this.
We have broken into two groups (faster and slower) Attendees are encourage to bring water. If you intend to stay up with Kirk’s faster group, and have not run at all in the past month, definitely remember to fill out that organ donation card.
We will keep this going until November, when the fall marathon season winds to an end. Then, we will pull in our horns until the new year
Sunday Run
And the Sunday run has been graced by the our friends Jack and Jodie Pozo-Olano, along with Gerry Ives, Barb Fallon, Terry Fry, Todd Martin, Anthony Belber, Henry Grossman, Hannah Howe and Robin Oswald. Word back is that the folks did a quick 15 miles last Sunday in the humidity.
The Perfect Storm/Into Thin Air – Distance Running Connection
Two of the most popular books of the past decade were “A Perfect Storm” by Sebastian Junger (about a disastrous commercial fishing expedition to the Grand Banks in 1991) and “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer (about a disastrous commercial climbing expedition to Mt Everest in 1996). In both books, two remarkably good distance runners figure quite prominently.
Neal Biedleman, the hero of Krakauer’s book, took charge of three climbers when the expedition fell apart at the top of Everest, almost certainly saving their lives. Biedleman is the former course record holder for a Mountain Marathon in Telluride, Colorado and among the front-runners in the Wasatch Front 100-Mile Endurance Run in Utah
Sebastian Junger, the author of The Perfect Storm, was nationally ranked marathoner before succumbing to injuries ten years ago. In 1987 at the Pittsburgh Marathon, Sebastian broke 2:21 – a terrific time by any stretch of the imagination. Says Junger about his running to Runners World
“As a runner, you learn to make yourself do things that make you feel horrendous. I found that that ability, to be totally unnegotiable with what you do, can be transferred to anything.”
Nice to know that our colleagues have experienced success in other realms.