Are Raptors the dominant club at "4th Sunday" races?

Post date: Jun 23, 2013 9:56:59 PM

Um. . . yeah! Of course we are also the only club that shows up in force every month but hey, everyone else is welcome to come! As we said back in my Army days, there is nothing between other clubs and racing at the lake but "air and opportunity." Well, okay. . . there is that other thing called "ability!" At this point it would take a lot of that for another club to make a dent on the Raptor's results!

By my count we had twelve Raptors (both kids and parents) running today and everyone did great!

First across the line in the 5K was (big surprise. . . NOT!) Annabel. What was beyond surprising and verging on shocking was her time. 20:06? That is almost one minute and thirty seconds under her old PR! That's crazy! No one takes a chunk that huge out of an already blistering PR. But Annabel did, as she led a Raptors sweep of the 11-14 class. That's right, 1-2-3! Annabel first, Riley second (and this was following an excellent run in the 3000 meters yesterday at Chabot College!) in 20:31 and new Raptor (well, she might be still deciding but we hope she joins!) Abby in 21:51.

Later, Gary did some research and found out the following:

"Annabel just misses Spencer Moore's Age-14 record for the lake by 7 seconds, but does break the 14-year-old time of Clara Horowitz (2002 State H.S. Champion in the 2-Mile)!" Wow! That's um. . . impressive. Watching Annabel's non-stressed finish and seeing also how quickly she recovered, she's got seven seconds in there easy. Look out Spencer!

Annabel heads toward her new 5K PR. Right behind her is Rich Bauer, one of my old Albany MS track parents. I think (we'll see when results come in) that he is in his 50s and he finished this close to Annabel? His wife (EO's old math teacher from AHS) also won her age group in the 5k. Should not these folks be Raptors?

Others in the 5K were "little" Clara (Schwartz) who set a (need I even say it?) new P.R. by almost a minute and later said this faster race was no harder than last month's! Clara just gets better and better and she is one of those "fun to watch" runners as her form is excellent. Even though she is going fast, she never looks like she is straining at all.

Corina has been, since I've known her, one of the bravest runners around. At her very first race at the lake she had a bad fall and finished in a really good time with some nasty scrapes and cuts. Today she had serious pain from her ankle (yeah, the one she screwed up when Coach Rick asked her to try the long jump--mea culpa), bad enough to put her in tears by the finish (very rare for her) but she still finished! She is now off to ride unicycles and do other fun circus stuff at Camp Winarainbow in Laytonville. If anyone I coach deserves a longish happy rest, it's Corina! Have fun, girl!!!

Now that the results are in we know how our other Raptors did in the 5K and there is some good news there! Nikhil ran a sparkling 22:30 and not far behind him was Ben "Someone get this kid a uniform" Morgan who beat the all-time record for a nine-year-old in the 5K by almost two minutes with a time of 22:45. And less than a minute behind Ben was Alexis (23:26), who looked absolutely fabulous at the finish and whom I think is poised to be yet another major Raptors star!

Riley finishes the 5K.

In the 10K the Raptors had two first-pace runners! First in was Krisna (50:19). He is working really hard at the daily BHS workouts (see home page) and is successfully laying down a solid base. Toward that end I suggested he run the 10K instead of his usual 5K but run it at a comfortable pace, more for the workout than anything else. He ran it a bit faster than "comfortable," got a great workout and took his age group. Nice!

Krisna and Clara, the two Raptors 10K winners pose with Nancy Deitz (I so much remember the name from the past but can't find her on Google. Gary, can you fill us in?) and Nadia, whom always-on-the-ball Krisna chatted up during the 10k! She's super-nice and it turns out she a track/XC coach in Oakland and would love to join/coach Raptors!

Our other 10K victor was "big" Clara (Mizock) who took a staggering nine minutes off her 10K PR (set last March during the Oakland Running Festival) with a 54:53 and would have easily been "Runner of the Week" if not for the also-strong efforts of her club-mates! Clara is another who is just getting better and better and I got the good news today that she will eventually be joining Brad to run for BHS. That's three years from now and it's scary to think how good she will be by then! In fact Gary told us that Clara's times are right up with, or even a tiny bit ahead of what Jared was doing at her age! And we all know about JARED!

Oh, and speaking of Jared, he and Gary had just returned from his sixth "Rock-and-Roll" 1/2 marathon in Seattle. How did he do? Only third in his age group in this enormous race! Today he was sporting what felt to be about five pounds of medals from that race! Awesome, as usual, Jared!

Afterwards, as is our tradition, many of us traveled to FENTON'S for breakfast followed in most kid's cases, by ICE CREAM!

Another excellent Sunday in Raptor's land!

Some of the division winners pose with Nancy Deitz.