USA! USA! Photo courtesy of Julia Taylor

The first of the .US Road Racing Championships, sponsored by USATF in collaboration with a new sponsor, Neustar, gets a spotty report card. Can I say that and still keep my good standing in USATF? Hope so.

The race course gets a solid A. The plentiful and emotionally invested police officers of the City of Alexandria get a good A. The staff of USATF and the boatloads of volunteers, happy to help and cheerful, ALL get As. And, the weather was an A+++ for a distance event.

But, some of the administrative details deserve, well, attention to detail. The online registration was cumbersome and hard to follow. And, you know, if I say that, you can dismiss it. If Julia Taylor says that, they need to pay attention.

As your determined PR person, I was crushed, crushed I tell you, to see that my WRC affiliation did not show up on the website along with other clubs. I called. I emailed. I was told again to verify my age and promised the change would be made, but no luck. And, then, at packet pickup things really fell apart Continue reading →

Paul Karlsen, bearing his club colors and displaying impeccable trail etiquette. At the Riffle Ford Rd. Aid Station along the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail, at mile 12.8 of the 2013 Stone Mill 50 Mile Run.

Paul Karlsen has achieved escape velocity from Planet Marathon’s gravitational pull, and is now in ultrarunner space. Many thanks go to race director, Doug Sullivan, and the MCRRC, who so capably hosted this logistically challenging event, thus culturing an engrossing experience for both athletes and their enablers alike.

Meanwhile, an undeterred Lauren Gabler stealthily struck a redemptive performance that somehow eluded her at this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. Word has it that her passport application for 2014 Boston is now being expedited.

Stone Mill Fifty Miler Race
Montgomery County, Maryland    11/16/2013   6:00 A.M.
Official Results

Place Sex/Tot  Num   Name                S Ag Gun Time Pace  
===== ======== ===== =================== = == ======== ===== 
   15  13/178    159 PAUL KARLSEN        M 35 08:07:00  9:45 
251 Finishers

2013 Anthem Richmond Marathon
November 16, 2013 - Richmond, VA
Results

PLACE	NAME		BIB	HALF	NETTIME	G/PLACE	D/PLACE	DIVISION
147	John Kendra	1096	1:30:37	3:07:22	130	 4	M50-54
577	Lauren Gabler	1125	1:44:22	3:34:03	119	32	W25-29
4798 Finishers

Friends of WRC, Harsha Thirumurthy (2:40:42) and Shawn Rumery (2:41:33), also ran quite respectably down in Richmond.

Good job to all! but what will Sunday’s Second Act bring? Stay tuned for late breaking results from Philadelphia and the 2013 USA Masters 12 km Championships!

Julia Taylor invokes skyscraper envy during her Saturday shake out run in Central Park

• Julia Taylor conquered the ING NYC Marathon in a new personal best of 3:22:56, and 340th woman. (results)
• Megan Haberle was the 13th woman to cross The Parks 10K finish line in a new personal best of 39:51. Said Megan, while finding us for coffee afterwards, “I was too busy racing back and forth with this one woman to remember to stop my watch at the finish line.” Good! Liz Lambert et enfant achieved an expectant harrier’s division per-athlete-average of 32:01. (results)
• Lucy Rogers, while enrolled in the Wake Forest Schools of Taking Care of Business, slipped away from her studies just long enough to race the Raleigh City of Oaks Marathon to a new personal best of 3:05:26, placing 26th overall and 4th woman! (results)

Lucy and Julia will both be racing next spring at the 2014 Boston Marathon.

Great performances for all from WRC!

Continue reading →

Below is a digest of the unoffical results for WRC members at the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon:

Bib	Name			SexAge	Nettime	Pace
2824	Max Lockwood		M43	2:51:57	6:33/mi, 115th OA
19825	Andrew Killian		M34	3:03:17	6:59/mi, 280th OA
290	Daniel Yi		M33	3:03:28	6:59/mi
30560	Gareth Coville		M34	3:09:35	7:13/mi
30339	Rachel Clattenburg	F29	3:10:36	7:16/mi, 46th woman
16650	Hillary Tipton		F24	3:16:36	7:29/mi, 78th woman
31750	Mark Wright		M50	3:22:27	7:43/mi
34723	Nathan Nair		M36	3:29:20	7:58/mi
31956	Jay Jacob Wind		M63	3:30:51	8:02/mi, 11th AG
21441	Lauren Gabler		F29	 3:42:13	8:28/mi
30654	Jerold Paulson		M54	3:44:03	8:32/mi
1120	Mary Baker		F25	4:00:59	9:11/mi
30551	Patrick O'Keefe		M26	4:12:01	9:36/mi
28822	Nancy Marsillo		F55	4:36:55	10:33/mi
32516	Robert Platt		M62	4:53:53	11:12/mi
7006	Anubhuti Mishra		F26	5:43:50	13:06/mi
8100	Jamie Williams		F42	5:59:52	13:43/mi

WRC leaders Lockwood and Clattenburg paced themselves impeccably, with intermediate splits that deserve a closer look. Team competition results and awards will be determined and made available sometime later this week.

UPDATED: WRC finished third in a very close race among the Mixed Teams, with a combined time of 9:05:50 (fun fact: they would have placed second among Men’s Open Teams)! Team awards are presented to the top three teams in each division. Way to go!
Team Results

We also have some results for WRC allies hailing from the Dojo of Pain, Georgetown SFS, and Japan, respectively.

Marathon
269	Chris Pruitt		M31	2:29:41 5:42/mi, 8th OA
1768	Alan Pemberton		M60	3:03:29	6:59/mi, 1st AG
278	Matt Weisbard		M25	3:15:44	7:27/mi
MCM10K
46226	Daisuke Ogata		M38	38:47	6:14/mi