PRTC Bi/Tri -Weekly 12/1?/2022: Cali Time
Holiday Party Time
The PRTC Holiday Party is coming up this Tuesday (12/20) at 6:30pm at New Deck Tavern! This is a change from the previous location!!! It's not at Pasqually's! Don't go there on Tuesday! Tell your friends not to go on Tuesday!
New Deck Tavern is located at 3408 Sansom St, Philadelphia, PA 19104. There is usually decent street parking the area, easy public transit access (subway, trolley, and bus are all doable). Also, plenty of poles/racks to lock bikes up to.
A few other notes:
1. PRTC will be ordering light apps. Drinks are Buy Your Own, plus any additional food you may desire.
3. We're doing club awards/superlatives! If you want your vote to count (why wouldn't you??), submit the form here by tomorrow, Monday, December 19th @ 11:59PM.
Awards will be at 7:30pm with a White Elephant following around 7:45pm.
If you got any questions, feel free to respond to this email or message myself or Stephanie Ng (who honestly has done 100% of the planning here) on Slack.
Coaches' Corner
Downtime! No official practice next week. We'll be at New Deck Tavern celebrating a great year.
Philly Runner In Person and Online
Philly Runner's physical locations are open in University City, Manayunk, Center City, King of Prussia and Glen Mills for in-person fittings! Book an appointment here, in person or virtually (not required to walk in).
The online store is still open too and available here: https://philadelphiarunner.com/shop-shoes
We do have a discount code for 15% off, feel free to respond to this email if you need it! Asics discount is 25% in person.
Beer of the Week: Tend - Half Acre
Album: Small Green House - Anxious
-Chris Mateer
Race Results
CIM
A crew of 4 club members traveled out west to Sacramento for the self billed "fastest course in the west".
Leading the way, Cassidy Nagle set a 3 minute PR, running a 2:50:14. Through out the race, she ran remarkably even splits the whole way.
On the men's side, Ryan Ritter also ran a PR, clocking a 2:35:03. Even though he missed getting under his goal of 2:35 by a razor thin margin, a PR is a PR baby, especially when you run one by almost 5 minutes.
Erik Reitinger came back just 2 weeks after electing to pull out of Philly midway and held on a for a 2:40:33 final time.
PRTC also had a few scatches/DNF's, as Josh Hibbs was knocked out of the race with a virus leading in and Olivia DeRogatis held tough for 14 miles before electing to drop and save herself for another crack (Houston!) at a fast time.
Results here.
Club XC Nationals
Man, where do we start with this one?
Before we get into results, it may be helpful to set the scene the scene.
Saturday morning, San Francisco was hit by a wall of rain and wind. Everyone had prepared all week for a mud-fest, screwing in half inch spikes and I even caught talk of taping shoes on at the technical meeting.
But, what's XC without some curve balls? Mid-warm up for the master's men and open women, a large tree fell in the park and came dangerously close to squishing a team's tent. Responding to the tree uh, situation, the city of San Francisco banned the original course and moved the rest of the races to a 1200m mixed paved/gravel horse track. All races were delayed for about an hour, including the master's men and open women who were caught mid-warm-up, and in the pouring rain no less.
That all being said, the races happened. Being an XC fan at heart, one thing I love about the sport is that versatility is rewarded, even if it's not how you expect. You need to be able to respond to changes almost instantly in some races. Even though the race itself was less "cross-country" than the planned courses, the skills and assets that it takes to succeed were still challenged and every club member responded as best as could have been asked in the moment.
Master's Men
Dealing with the brunt of the logistical confusion were the master's men. They were essentially on the line when the race was indefinitely postponed and then made into a de facto horse race. Luckily, they're masters at this thing!
The men rode the wave of change with grace, however, and raced tough in also some of the worst weather of the day.
Harsha Thirumurthy capped yet another consistent season for himself with a rock solid 81st overall finish in a time of 32:47 for what has been determined to be somewhere around 5.9 miles (the adjusted course was about 500-600m short).
Next up was newly minted master's runner, Pete Celona. Pete just turned 40 a few weeks ago and celebrated by flying across the country to tangle with the nation's best. He came home with a 171st overall finish in 35:03.
Rounding out the club was Coach Rob Hewitt in 254th and a ringer recruited by Rob (who we're hoping sticks around from here), Conrad Haber in 294th. They also showed their prowess by bringing the largest beer cans to the after party (smart!).
The master's men were 1 shy of a team score unfortunately, but brought home 4 impressive individual races.
Open Women
Also mid-warm-up when the chaos ensured was the open women. Their race was delayed enough that most women opted to go back to the expertly located Airbnb's (all warm up distance from the course) to stay warm before embarking on their 2nd warm-up. Despite the chaos, the women put together a fantastic 14th overall team finish, just 4 places off the highest finish in club history.
XC veteran, Maria Seykora, led the way and snagged a huge 56th overall with a 19:42 (also about 500-600m short of a 6k). This capped off a fantastic season for Maria, on the heels of her great race at the Rothman 8k.
Maria was followed by Coach Claire Hewitt, who grabbed 66th overall in 19:54. Not only was this race just a few weeks shy on Claire's marathon in Philadelphia, but also check how many other 39 year old's finished in front of her (spoiler alert: it was 1).
Overcoming a missed start was Ellen Ferina, who rallied to save the day and snagged 78th overall in 20:09. Per her own report, she wasn't passed by a single runner the entire race. Toughing out a race where she was literally behind from the gun...Ellen may have been the pivotal piece for the women securing a their eventual 14th place finish.
Stephanie Ng placed 114th overall in 20:46 to come across the line 4th for the club, fresh off the heels of her breakout 5k on Thanksgiving.
Katie Rose Sullivan came in next to complete the club's scoring 5 in182nd in a time on 22:02.
Rounding out PRTC's women finishers were Gabriella Audi in 216th, Katie Pokorny in 233rd, and Cynthia Cuiule in 234th.
Open Men
With the Master's Men and Open Women getting the horse track warmed up, the Open Men took the course and ended the day with a statement race. The men took 4th overall and finishing in the top 5 for the first time (in any of the fields) in club history.
With a a little more notice than the previous races, the men scrambled to switch shoe, change spikes, and figure out how many laps they were exactly running (7.8, roughly). Ironically, the men also had near perfect weather despite the earlier deluge.
The men's team was led by the trio of Zach Michon (27:24), Greg Morgan (27:36) and Ryan Mahalsky (27:39), who finished in 14th, 17th, and 19th overall. Zach notched the highest finish in PRTC history with his 14th place finish, while finishing just seconds ahead of two teammates.
Rounding out the team scoring and working together in the later part of the race was Paul Matuszak (28:36) and Frank Livosi (28:49), coming in 62nd and 73rd place, respectively. This has been Frank's first season with the club and he ended it in style. Meanwhile, Paul is among the longest tenured members of the club and continues to churn out impressive races.
David Dorsey was the 6th man across the line in 94th place in a time of 29:03, capping of an incredibly consistent year and making him the 2nd highest placing 6th man in the entire field. Bowerman's 6th runner finished 7 spots up on Dorsey.
Having the B team race of the day was Connor Harriman, who who took 127th overall in 29:28. He was closely followed by Nick Cardamone, who completed a great late season with a 135th place finish in 29:33.
Despite tweaking his hamstring down the homestretch, Declan Walkush (30:18) was the team's 9th man through in 185th.
Rounding out the finishers was Chris Mateer (31:22) in 255th, Kris Lizins (32:20) in 317th, Max Krall (32:52) in 339th, Steve Hallman (33:31) in 367th, and John Hoffman (33:47) in 378th.
Individual and team results for all races here.
Reindeer Romp 5k
New(ish) club member, Ryan Rastatter, sniped a win at the Havertown Reindeer Romp in a time of 16:35. He edged out 2nd place by 6 seconds.
Coming in 5th overall and (as per usual) at the top of his age group was Colin Bodels in 17:49.
For the women, also new(ish) to the club was Andrea Allen, who grabbed 2nd overall in 19:10. Coming in hot off the heels of a marathon PR was Kate Courtin in 20:05 for 3rd overall.
Results here.
Below....some missed trots!
Key West FL Turkey Trot
Colin Bodels snagged 1st Master and 4th overall in the Key West FL Turkey Trot. Bib didn’t register but his final time was 18:39. Not going to link any results because well...his bib didn't register.
Run for the Diamonds
Missed a big one! Zoe Matherne took 3rd overall at the historically loaded Run for the Diamonds in Berwick, PA. Top 7 in the race win diamonds and Zoe snagged hers comfortably. Zoe ran 54:05 on the challenging 9 mile course for a 40 seconds personal best. Congrats Zoe!
Results here.
Races
All of January, 2023: Chase the Throne (Philly/Virtual)
January 15, 2023: Chevron Houston Marathon (Houston, TX)
January 21, 2023: USATF Cross-Country Nationals (Richmond, VA)
February 18, 2023: Frostbite 5 Miler (Ambler, PA)*
March 25, 2023: Project 13.1 (Rockland Lake Park, NY)
March 26, 2023: Love Run (Philadelphia, PA)
April 1, 2023: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (Washington D.C)
April 16, 2023: Valley Forge Revolutionary Run 5 Miler (Valley Forge, PA)*
April 17, 2023: Boston Marathon (Boston, MA)
May 7, 2023: Broad St 10 Miler (You Know)*
Looking for indoor races? Dorsey has a great race tracker, you can check out here.