Cross Country Season Begins!

I had to turn the heat on in the house this morning, and had a fire in the fireplace yesterday!  What does this mean?  Cross Country season!!

I ran my second longest training run of the year yesterday, 8.0 miles at about 8:42 pace.  This coming Saturday, I hope to run a hilly 5K trail race/cross country race in a beautiful wooded park setting, about an hour from Buffalo.  Last year I "won" this race, by virtue of the first place guy winning the Father/Son team title.  We'll see what happens this year.  I don't feel like I'm quite in the shape I was last year.

Stay tuned!

Alan Webb is living in Charlottesville

Alan Webb just won a low-key 5K race in 14:29, but more importantly, this article says he has been living in Charlottesville, VA!!  Eric, please look for him at the track or on the roads, and attempt to interview him for the blog!

Alan Webb in Charlottesville Wins 5K article

Fall Training Starts

Wow, finally, some reasonable weather for training!  After a long, hot summer, where it seemed nearly every run was under uncomfortable, hot conditions, we finally had some cooler weather this past weekend, inspiring me to start my fall cross country season training.  With that in mind, I ran 8.2 miles yesterday on trails, some of them fairly rugged, averaging about 8:51 per mile.

Paul Ryan's Marathon Time

Just when you thought politics could not get any sillier, it did.  And who would have thought it would involve marathon running?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/paul-ryan-marathon-lie_n_1858384.html

Running Raybucks Make Impact in Moonlight Run 5K

Mark and Kaila Raybuck fared well in Wednesday night's Moonlight Run 5K in Williamsville, NY, placing 57th and 167th, respectively, out of more than 1,100 runners.

Race start:  See Mark at arrow.

Kaila, running her first race since high school cross country, ran a very respectable 22:49 (7:22/mile), placing 9th in the women's 20 to 24 age group.  What made this even more impressive was that she played two full sets of tennis earlier in the afternoon!  On top of that, she didn't pay much attention to mile splits, and wasn't really aware of where she was until she noticed the finish line.  "I didn't realize the race was almost over, but I must have picked off 50 people in the final straightaway!" stated Kaila to reporters after the race.  "I really enjoy picking people off!"

Mark ran moderately well also, with a 19:55 (6:25/mile), good enough for 2nd out of 62 in the men's 50 to 54 age group.  After passing one of his age-group competitors with 400 meters to go, the runner sprinted by Mark in the last 50 meters.  However, the results were based on "net" electronic chip time, and Mark was awarded the win, much to the chagrin of the now 3rd place finisher!  To make this story even better, the competitor, one Ronald Prabucki, is reportedly the brother of Bernie Prabucki, an All American from the Gary Truce days, who typically beat Raybuck in NCAA cross country and track and field in the late 70s.

Oh, and there were great hot dogs after the race!

Full results are posted here.  I have not located any race photos yet, but will post later if discovered.


Mark

5K Race Tonight!

Tonight at 8 pm, my daughter and I will lace up our spikes (well, flats), and toe the line at the annual Williamsville Moonlight 5K Run.  In the summer, I am usually not in good shape due to tennis and the heat (don't like running in the heat), but my daughter wanted to run a 5K race, so I agreed. 

Now that I'm entered, I'm hoping for something like a 6:15 to 6:30 pace, or 19:20ish to 19:50ish.  This is a very competitive race for a 5K, with about 900 runners, and a likely finish place (if I do well) of around 50th.

Results to come in a blog within the next couple of days!!

Stay tuned!

Coach Dave

Congratulations to our very own Dave Caplin, new cross country coach at Hudson High School in Hudson, Ohio.  Dave joins the growing list of former SUNY-B runners who are now professional running coaches.  Others known to be coaching are Bill McMullen and Mike Raybuck.

Dave writes:  "I've been working with the guys since July 9. It's going well and our first meet is Aug 25. We got a late start b/c of the transition but I'm not worried. Four of my returning runners were at State last year. I'm having incredible fun."

My Aching Foot

The good news:  my foot is not broken.  The bad news:  it is bruised and I need to give serious consideration to not running.

Yesterday I visited a foot doctor who is a good friend who did an exam and took a number of X-rays and showed them to me.  There are no obvious breaks but I'm sure the pain is real.  The thinking is that years and years of supination has put me on a path towards a nasty fracture (quite possibly the eventual result could be the infamous Jones fracture).

There was no particular incident.  All of a sudden, not even after running, I had a lot of pain.  In the fall of 2008 I had a similar thing happen (though at that time the pain started right after a run).  Back then the pain was never as bad as it is now and I never consulted a doctor.  Nor do I think I stopped running.  After about 18 months I was pain free.

I think the sane thing to do is to quite running and get more serious about biking.  Right now, running is out of the question.  I'm not even going to try and bike for a few more days to give the foot some more rest time.

The thought of not running makes me sad.  I started running when during cross country season in 1972 when I was a junior in high school.  That's almost 40 years.  Ever since then I've run most days and on the days that I didn't run I usually felt guilty about not running.

:-(

Summer Running Update

Hi, folks, I know our global audience has been clamoring for posts, so here we go.  Lots of tennis this summer, so running has been somewhat secondary.  For example, this week, I will have about 4 runs of 5 to 5.5 miles each, and two tennis matches.  However, I'm trying to do quality workouts, including about one tempo run per two weeks.  Thursday evening, I ran 5.25 miles total, with 2 miles at "tempo" pace in the middle, about 7:17/mile average.  This was slower than my 7:01 per mile pace from a couple weeks ago, but this run was on rolling hills in a park, with grass trails, so that may be the difference.

Still hoping to round into shape for autumn cross country and trail racing "season."

Stay tuned!