More Early October Results

Patti and Jenni were not the only RMEC members in action this weekend. We have three people compete in a Triathlon, and another person decide to run a surprise trail marathon as well.

Pinehurst Triathlon: Tim, Cliff, and Dave all competed in the Pinehurst Triathlon on Saturday. This event had a 1500m swim, 40k bike, and a 10k run. This was a pretty challenging distance, especially if you consider the heat. Dave continued his streak of Novice Master wins, finishing in first place by more than 12 minutes. His time of 2:33:55 was actually good enough to place third out of all Novices.

Tim was next to finish with a time of 2:39:03, followed by Cliff with 3:08:09. Tim had a strong race. His extra running showed through when he ran an impressive 50:45 in the 10k portion.

• Dave - Swim 30:44, Bike 1:11:55, Run 48:06
• Tim - Swim 32:12, Bike 1:31:31, Run 50:45
• Cliff - Swim 42:29, Bike 1:24:26, Run 56:31

Even more RMEC teammates are racing Lake Royale next weekend.

Triple Lakes Marathon: Brent decided to run the Triple Lakes Tail race in Greensboro on Saturday. He almost backed out multiple times and waffled until Monday to sign up. Up to this point, Brent's training had only been about 15- 20 miles a week for the last few weeks. Sounds like a perfect recipe for someone's first trail marathon!

There were about 90 finishers of the full marathon and Brent was 28th in 4:38:08. This was good enough for eighth place in his age group. The race comes highly recommended by Brent. There are several cool features (nice tech shirt for one), it has a 40 mile option for masochists and a 10 mile option (good intro to trail racing). Also, you can do the 26.2 or 40 miler as a relay team. Might be something for our group to consider in 2008. Here is a link to some great race photos.

Heat Wave in Chicago!

This is a race recap I never thought I would be writing in the second week of October. Due to heat, the Chicago Marathon was essentially canceled during the race! You heard me correctly. Runners were told to get off the course, or walk to the finish!

This marked the 30th running of the Chicago Marathon, and in the previous 30 years they had never seen a day this hot. From start to finish the race was hot. It was so hot that at 11:30 the race officials began rerouting runners who had not hit the half way point back to the finish. This caused a few traffic issues as you might imagine. The photo above shows literally thousands of runners trying to cross roads with plenty of traffic.

Fortunately our two RMEC runners were well ahead of the rerouting, and were able to complete the course. This was not without experiencing some interesting events. To combat the heat the city of Chicago opened up the hydrants to turn some of the roads into an enormous slip-and-slide. And at mile 20, the fire trucks were announcing "Attention runners, the marathon has been canceled. You can stop running now."

In her first marathon, Jenni did great, finishing in 4:46:56. Not far behind was Patti with a time of 5:29:30. Now let's be honest, neither Jenni or Patti reached their time goal, but what they accomplished is truly amazing! 24,950 runners finished a race that 45,000 registered for. Patti and Jenni are proud to be two of those that finished.

Over time, this race will become legendary. Runners will say, "Do you remember Chicago 2007? Wow! What a year. . ." Having a 2007 finishers medal will be something special. Both could have jumped on a bus and taken an air conditioned ride back to the finish, but they didn't. . . they finished the 2007 Chicago Marathon!

Great job ladies!

RUN RSVP: Saturday 10/05

Okay, last week was a recovery week. Here is hoping your legs are ready for a challenge. Intermediate plan runners are doing their second 20 miler, and everyone else is running 18. For safety reasons, I pushed the start back to 7:00 a.m. It is too dark right now to put a group our size on the roads. By 10:00 am it should still be under 75.

Run Details:

• Day: Saturday @ 7:00 a.m.
• Where: Harris Teeter
• First Carolina State Bank Half: 5 miles
• Novice: 18 miles
• and Intermediate: 20 miles
• Supported: Yes - Three stops of Powerade, Water, and Gels.
• Weather: Forecast

The current forecast is calling for showers. We still run in the rain! If it rains on race day, you would not quit. . . right? Actually running in the rain is one of my favorite things to do. Here are a few tips. . .

• Put on extra body glide to prevent chafing
• Bring a hat to keep water out of your eyes
• Don't over dress. You can put on a jacket but you will get just as wet from perspiration
• Bring a towel and a shirt so you can change post run

Fluids will be at the tracks (twice) and Co-Ah-Bar. Bring more if you need it.

Windy City and More

Chicago - The fall marathon season officially gets kicked of for the RMEC this weekend. Patti and Jenni will soon be on their way to the Windy City to run in the Chicago Marathon. Sunday Morning they will join more than 50,000 runners on a 26.2 mile journey throughout the city, in one of the largest marathons in the world!

You can also register to track their progress online. This has been a challenging summer of training for both Jenni and Patti with several injuries popping up, but they never gave up, and should do great. Good luck ladies!

Pinehurst - On Saturday, several RMEC member will be doing another sprint triathlon. Dave, Tim, and Cliff will be in Pinehurst for the 2007 Triathlon. This even has a 1500m swim, 40k bike, and a 10k run. The weather looks great for a tri. Good luck guys!

Odds and Ends

I have had several people sharing information with me recently that I keep meaning to put on the blog. Most are just short bits of information, but things you may find interesting. So here are some odds and ends for you.

World Record - In case you missed, Haile Gebrselassie set the marathon world record last weekend in Berlin. He finished in 2:04:26, crushing the old record by 29 seconds. Paul Tergat was the previous record holder who set the mark on the same course just a few years ago. Looks like my personal goal just got harder to achieve.

New Triathlon - North Carolina is getting a new Ironman Triathlon in 2008. Willimington will host the inaugural Beach2Battleship Full and 1/2 Iron Distance Triathlon on November 1, 2008. This is exciting news to have an event like this so close to home. Any RMEC members ready for a challenge?

Thursday Hills - It has been several weeks sense we did any hill workouts. I can honestly say they helped me tremendously at the Duke Tri Relay on a challenging course. With a hilly New York Marathon just one month away, I need to get back to work. Is there anyone else interested in resuming hills? The schedule with our kids makes this challenging for me, but that should not stop the group from continuing the work outs. Please post here if you want to run hills this Thursday.

Greenville Biathlon - Sunday October 14th, the 21st annual Fiesta Biathlon will be run in Greenville. It is a 5K run, then a 15 mile bike with a rolling finish. The entry fee is $30 prior to Oct 8, and $35 thereafter and on the day of the race. There is a free Mexican meal for all racers and beer tickets, too, as one of the sponsors is Chico’s in Greenville. This is a casual and fun event that doesn’t take much preparation, or a good tune-up with the interesting run/bike transition. Rob is going down and may have room, plus a bike rack, if anyone’s interested.

RMEC Racers - Just a reminder that several people are racing the next two weekends. We have some experience participants, and some first timers. I will post a message Friday with everyone I know that is racing this weekend. We even have someone kicking off the fall marathon season!

Shirt Update as of 10/03

UPDATED: We have 38 total shirts ordered. In the original request they pulled white shirts, but as the order grew they were out of white. This means we are getting some 27 white shirts and 11 black shirts. If you said in the post you want black, I think I have you covered. If you were one of the later orders, it will be filled with a black shirt unless someone wants to trade with you.

Because we have two different shirts, I had to find ink colors that would work on both. Trying to stick with a fall theme, I used orange. I went with grey for the other color, because it should show up well on black and white.

Click above for a larger image.

Please start sending me your payments as soon as possible. I will be getting hit with a $680 charge to my credit card this week. Shirts are $17.85.

Red Indicates Paid.

1. S - Cameron
2. S - Emily
3. M - Ursula
4. M - Tracy P
5. M - Elaine
6. M - Patti
7. M - Larry
8. M - Ryan
9. M - Amber
10. M - Tampa
11. M - Richard
12. M - Carol
13. M - Tim
14. M - Tracy H
15. M - Jenni
16. L - Scott
17. L - Misty
18. L - Jeff
19. L - Derek
20. L - Michael
21. L - Arthur
22. L - Eric
23. L - Gerry
24. L - Steve
25. L - Steve
26. L - Andy
27. L - Bob
28. L - Frank
29. L - Tim
30. L - Brent
31. L - Kinnie
32. L - Tom
33. L - Dave
34. L - Dave
35. XL - Russ
36. XL - Eric
37. XL - Rob
38. XXL - Matt

Week of October 1 rides

I want to say thanks to everyone for showing up and having a great ride on Saturday morning. My apologies to Tim for not checking my messages before we pulled out. I hope that everyone enjoyed the ride as much as I did and it was great to have Al and Ken back on their bikes. We had 13 riders in the group and averaged about 18.5 mph for 30 miles.

I will be riding during lunch (usually leave at 11:30 AM) from my office Tuesday through Friday this week. If you would like to join me, we can organize a place to meet along a route or we can meet at my plant, there is parking and routes around the reservoir or out toward Red Oak are easy to start. My current plan is a moderate 20 miler on Tuesday, 25 to 30 on Wednesday relatively fast, Intervals/hills sprints on Thursday and a recovery spin on Friday.

How many people would be available to ride on Saturday morning this week? As we went North last week, let's plan to do the Elm City Loop to the South this week - 34 miles, flat - this week. I think that the 7:30 start worked pretty well, but we will leave from the Belton and Schrimper dental office. Please RSVP.

Finally, if you have had difficulty signing up for the group, here is the Yahoo tutorial site. Please try to sign up and if you know anyone else who may ride or would be interested, be sure to send them an invite to join after you sign up.

This is the web site address you can give to them so that they can sign up. If they visit the site, they can start by clicking the "Join this group" button and following the instructions.

Thanks again for the great ride on Saturday. Oh, and best wishes to Cliff, Tim, Dave and anyone else participating in the Pinehurst Sprint Triathlon this weekend. - Eric