Half-Mile Madness
Southern Speed, Road Racing News, and 800m Insanity
Call this a request. A call-to-action. A plea, even! Heck, you can call it a cry for help if it suits you, but hear me out: Reasonably Speedy has been growing steadily for the past nine weeks. In that time, we’ve passed 200 followers on Instagram and come tantalizingly close to 75 email subscribers. It’s a huge step forward, and it’s by far the most people I’ve ever had reading anything I write. But it ain’t world domination. And I won’t stop until collegiate club running is the most beloved sport the world over. Until club runners are celebrities in their own right, flocked with paparazzi on every walk to class. Until the Illinois Club Relays is televised, unbroken by ads and commentated by yours truly, on NBC and EPSN1 (none of this “The Ocho” crap!). In other words — WORLD DOMINATION.
In all seriousness, I’m thrilled about the community that’s beginning to spring up around this newsletter, and I’d love to see it keep growing as we head into outdoor season. So I did something I never do — I crunched the numbers. Throwing caution (and my “1” on the AP Calc exam) to the wind, I did some math, and found that if everybody currently subscribed to the newsletter shared Reasonably Speedy with one (1) friend, and even if only half (1/2) of those friends actually subscribed for themselves, then we’d cruise past 100 subscribers before you can say “NIRCA.” Don’t even get me started on what could happen if you shared it with two friends!
So consider this my formal request: pick out your favorite edition of Reasonably Speedy, click on the “share” button, and send it to 1-100 of your closest friends. Or if that’s too complicated, just click here:
Thanks, y’all. The more readers I have, the more access I have to things like meet results and race photos. Speaking of which…
The South’s Got Some Speed!
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. When I was eight (almost nine), my family moved to Richmond, Virginia. I have only been north of Baltimore twice (and the time I’ve spent up there totals less than a week). Therefore, I’ve been feeling a bit of regionalistic guilt over the last few weeks, for fear that I’ve been focusing too much on the Midwest.
Rest assured, the quantity of coverage I’ve allocated to the North Coast isn’t due to any sudden infatuation with the Great Lakes. In all honesty, I think it’s more an issue of climate than anything else. There are, according to my “calculations”, only 2 colleges in the state of Virginia whose facilities include an indoor track — CNU (200m, flat) and Liberty (200m, banked). The weather stays temperate enough down here that, even in the dead of winter, one can usually find their way to a local track and sneak in a workout before without fear of frostbite. The coldest run I had to endure this winter was a breezy ten-miler on a 22-degree morning in January, and I wouldn’t shut up about it for the rest of the week (my hair froze solid!).
Up North, at least as far as I can tell, the indoor oval is a far more prevalent venue for both training and racing, and the season’s results seem to back me up on this. Now that Spring has arrived — and with it, outdoor track — club athletes from across the Southeast are beginning to prove they’ve been putting in work, even if they haven’t had the races to prove it. The past few weeks have seen a massive surge in newsworthy performances by southern clubs, a trend that will likely continue as we charge ahead into the outdoor season.
On March 19, Scott Greeves of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville ran 5000m in 14:54.60. In the process, he became the fastest club runner of 2022 over that distance. One of 5 club athletes to break 15 minutes in the 5000m so far this year (and one of 3 to do so outdoors), Greeve’s performance put him over 4 seconds ahead of the next-fastest outdoor 5k (more on that later) and 1.5 seconds ahead of the indoor lead (14:56.1 by Michigan’s Bo Shepherd).
Unwilling to be outdone, middle distance runners across the South laced up their spikes and hit the track. And, as I predicted earlier this year, the 800m was the event to watch. A startling six club athletes ran under two minutes in the 800m last weekend, four of whom broke 1:58. Between the VA Tech’s Hokie Invitational, the UGA Track Invitational, and several larger races where club athletes ran unattached, fast times were cropping up all over the place on Saturday. As of now, the list of club athletes who’ve broken 2 in the 2022 outdoor season consists of:
John Rowsell (Florida) — 1:57.38
Zach Messaros (West VA) — 1:57.54
Max Worley (Maryland) — 1:57.84
Heath Varmette (Auburn) — 1:57.94
Jordan Foreman (Florida) — 1:59.17
Aidan McCarthy (VA Tech) — 1:59.18
In addition to the half-mile madness of 800m running last weekend, UNC-Charlotte’s Riley LePrell ran 4:08.29 in the 49er Classic 1500m last Friday. That makes him the second-fastest club runner of 2022 over that distance. His teammate, Freshman Will Walsh, also ran 4:15.30.
The Hokie Invitational closed out the weekend with some fierce competition and some gutsy racing (see below). Though I, sadly, wasn’t able to make it down to Blacksburg on Sunday, VT Running Club was kind enough to send me the results, as well as some fantastic photos of the meet. Though it was, by all accounts, a windy day for racing, the athletes took it in stride, running hard despite the suboptimal conditions. UVA long-distance superstar Thi Nguyen won the women’s 5000m by over a minute, running 19:20. Not one to settle for just one measly victory, Nguyen stepped back on the track and won the 3000m, too, running 11:16.
It was VA Tech, however, who ultimately swept the team victories. Scoring 399 and 151 respectively, the men’s and women’s teams took first place on their home turf (or, at least, a high school track adjacent to their home turf).
Ducks Take Flight
Remember how I said UTK’s Scott Greeves is one of three club athletes to break 15 so far this season? Well the other two aren’t just teammates — they did it in the same race! At the Willamette Opener on March 5, Oregon Run Club’s Emmett Saulnier and Owen Serrichio ran 14:58.98 and 14:59.77, respectively, taking first and second overall in the race.
Anybody who knows track knows that any team coming out of Eugene, OR is worth watching — even at the club level. Saulnier and Serrichio had opened their season in style, but they weren’t done there. The next weekend, at the LCC Open, Serrichio dropped a blistering 4:02.85 1500m that was followed by Saulnier’s return to the 5000m — lowering his season best another 2.79 seconds. On the women’s side, Keaton Ibendahl took third overall in the 5000m with a solid 18:58 showing. Not to be outdone, two UORC runners took on the outdoor 3000m, Freshman Juan Munoz Martinez and Sophomore Donovan Dehewitt, running 8:51 and 8:53 to take 9th and 10th overall a the highly competitive field.
DoG Days are Coming
There’s a thriving road racing community here in Williamsburg, VA, thanks largely to Colonial Sports. CS and the Colonial Road Runners put on a fantastic roster of road races year-round, but for their 13th Annual Run the D.o.G. Street 5k (to be held on April 16th), they’re trying something new. This year’s race — held on a pancake-flat, USATF-certified 5k course that snakes through the heart of Colonial Williamsburg — will feature a division entirely for collegiate club runners. Colonial Sports explained it like this in their email to Team Blitz:
“We are hoping that all of the College Running Clubs will participate and that we can create a competitive Collegiate Running Club Division. We will keep the competition simple this year. Teams can register as many members as you wish, male or female, and we will count the fastest 7 times for each team regardless of gender. The winning team gets bragging rights for one year, Travel Trophy ( which must be returned the following year) and a plaque. All participants receive a swag bag, technical race tee, and beautiful die cast finisher medal. Additionally, all participants can compete for overall and age group awards… This is a very good course with several straight and long legs. The course record is 14:12 for men and 16:21 for women.”
I think this is an incredible idea, and I’d love to see it included as a part of future races, too. Personally, I’m hoping to see a sea of club singlets out on the course on April 16th — come set a pre-Easter/post-Passover PR! Come race me on my home turf! The link to register is here. If you have any questions about travel, lodging, or any other Williamsburg-based logistics, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’ve been here for four years, it’s about time I made myself useful!
[AUTHOR’S NOTE: I feel I should clarify that my promotion of this event is in no way affiliated with Colonial Sports or Colonial Road Runners. They didn’t ask me to advertise this. In all honesty, I’m quite certain they’ve never heard of this publication! I recieved an email about this as a member of Team Blitz, and I wanted to alert all of you.]
The Last Indoor Meets I’ll Tell You About This Year (Probably)
Here’s the thing about club running — without a legitimate championship to definitively close things out, the line between the indoor and outdoor seasons can be nebulous (if existant at all). As a result, March has included a few final indoor races, even as meets are moving outside elsewhere.
The first of these was the Adam Sanford Classic (held at the Armory in NYC), an open race that saw strong showings from several members of the UCONN Track & Field Club. Shotputter Clarissa Nock kept her win streak alive, throwing 11.14m to take first overall, while Ava Buckmir dropped an impressive 28.08 200m. On the men’s side, sprinter Anish Rajamanickam had quite a day, running 22.99 for the 200m and 51.19 for the 400m.
Meanwhile, up in Rhode Island, the Brown University Running Club hosted the Billy Brockmueller Invitational on March 12, the last officially club-affiliated indoor meet on the calender for 2022. Clubs in attendance included Tufts, UMass Lowell, Stonybrook, Boston University, Northeastern, and Rhode Island. Notable performanced include Brown’s 8:18.1 victory in the men’s 4x800m relay and the Tufts men’s 3:43.1 4x400m, securing them a 1st place finish in a competitive field.
