Runners Connect Team: Their Goodst Results Ever?

It was another spectacular weekend of globetrotting PR’s by the RunnersConnect team. Although I was excited to see Erno de Korte’s PR at the Drunense Duinenloop half marathon (1:59:16!), I was really excited by his questioning of the English language:

Float – floater – floatst.

As non-native English speaker, I still think that English is an odd language: why is ‘smooth – smoother – smoothest’ OK and why is ‘good – gooder – goodst’ replaced by ‘good – better – best’?”

Excellent question, Erno. My hypothesis is that the English language was created to confuse all of those who don’t speak it as a first language. Erno’s suggestion is good, but perhaps goodest works better? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. All I know is that I enjoyed incorporating ‘goodst’ into the the message board chatter. Congrats, Erno, on introducing a new language concept and also on being able to run quite a few floatst miles.

Back in the good old US of A, there were several RC’ers toeing the line in the Big Apple for a half marathon:

Manhattan Half Marathon

Liesbeth Stoeffler, Simeon Bayles and Laurette Balinsky all represented Team RunnersConnect in New York City over the weekend. Liesbeth thought she’d never see daylight again during a long stretch in the Battery Park Tunnel, and not only did she emerge, she ran her target time.

Simeon Bayles left it all out on the course and picked up a nice PR (by almost three minutes). Although he can look back and see definite areas where he can improve (pacing), knowing that he still got a PR despite getting carried away in a couple of spots has to leave him feeling confident. It’ll all come together in a race eventually, and when it does he’ll be looking at an even better PR.

Laurette Balinsky also ran for a new PR despite having to run on ice blocks until her feet finally thawed six miles into the race. That’s impressive and we can only imagine how we’ll she’d run without the ice blocks.

Across the country…

Out in LA, Rob Sklenar ran a PR on a warm day and with some bad pacing help. Although he was able to get his Flash t-shirt fixed in time, Rob didn’t feel great during the race. That’s where a good pacer could’ve helped him overcome that, but it just turned out to be one of those days. To come away from it with a PR is still impressive though. On a better day, he should have a real shot at his goal of 3:25.

Tracie Winters ran a PR (for half marathons outside the state of Florida). Tracie didn’t feel great but she hit her goal (sub-1:50) and also got in some hill work, which will really help her in preparation for the Boston Marathon.

Eric Eidsmoe ran an easy 5K in Bay City, MI, even though it was a day after a 16 miler and it was supposed to be an off day! Eric was surprised at how fast he was able to go without overdoing it. His training partner ran with him and PR’d. Yeah, we’ll take credit for that too!

Brian Schmidt took a brief break from marathon training to run the Dash Down Greenville with his training partner. It was a solid race for Brian, and his 16:43 was good for 9th place (out of 9,000 runners!). Cathal Grant (coached by Brian) also ran and finished in 18:04, winning his age group in the process. According to Coach Brian:

“This is a great effort for Cathal given that it’s not far off from his PR and he is in the middle of marathon training getting ready for Boston. It will be exciting to see how having good speed helps his performance in the marathon.”

Gary Landsverk ran negative splits at a local 10K race. Not only did he avoid taking a fall on the icy and snow-packed trail, but he also finished first in his age group (50-59).

Amy Feit woke up to find her car covered in ice and then was faced with horrific race day traffic. Amy had to run damn near a mile to get to the starting line just in time for the national anthem. None of that stopped her from getting a big PR of more than three minutes. Amy ran a 1:39:53, good for 11th in her age group and 51st for females overall.

Finally, we have Jay McGrath and his “best race ever!” After a tough winter of training, Jay ripped out a good one and thoroughly enjoyed it the whole way. Does it get any better than that? Thanks to some spot on race planning from Jeff, and for his part excellent execution, Jay felt strong the whole way and was able to blow by many runners over the final stages of the race.

Good stuff, Team, good stuff. As I look out my window now, the skies are filled with gray clouds and the icy white menace is everywhere. Reading through all of these race results helped to provide some much needed motivation for me on this harsh last day of winter. Keep up the great work!

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