Sunday, July 27, 2008

Younger Raybuck improves mile time

Michael Raybuck, a long-time Dr. K Striders member, lowered his mile time again yesterday, hitting a 6:41.2, an improvement over a 6:45 from a fortnight ago.

"It wasn't easy, and it wasn't fun!" said Raybuck to reporters immediately after the time trial, gasping for breath in between words. I think that's it for the season. But within minutes, Raybuck was "feeling much better" and talking it up about his next attempt. Raybuck, a track coach at Fillmore Central, where he was somewhat of a track legend in the late 70s (4:26 miler, school record holder), has an ultimate goal this season of beating the slowest miler on his squad (6:36). Actually, to be fair, high school times are 1600 meters, so one could safely add 3 seconds to the 6:36, putting Raybuck within a scant couple of seconds from his season's goal.

Raybuck's "claim to fame" are his legendary track battles in rural Allegany County with one John Tuttle, a school boy track prodigy turned Olympian (1984 Los Angeles Games, marathon). Raybuck gave Tuttle a run for his money on more than one occasion, although never quite gaining the edge over the future Olympian.

More to come on Raybuck's summer progress.........

1 comment:

Eric said...

Way to go Mike!

I think your impressive times, given your lack of training, show that, to some extent, ability does matter.

Keep it up.