A very productive day at Lake Merritt "Fourth Sunday" run, & Nolan at State!

Post date: Jan 12, 2013 9:01:04 PM

November 2011

Late news! It looks like Jared and Gary are joining Raptors. Also, Gary did some research and found that Jared (11) and Annabel (13) both ran the fastest 10Ks ever on the Lake Merritt course for their ages!

We had five Raptors running at today's race: Annabel, Jamie, Nikhil, Zach and Laura. We also may have picked up some new members. . . some new fast members! The first "kid" finisher in the 5k, name of Tristan, is a freshman at College Prep, a nice kid and an excellent runner, He may join but his mom said even if he doesn't she has many friends with middle-school-aged kids who have been looking for a club like Raptors. Cool!

And then, while the race was going on Marina and I met a really nice guy named Gary, who had an eleven-year-old son running in the 10K. He asked if the Raptors took eleven year olds and we said, "Sure." Then the 10K finished and the 11-year-old (Jared) was only a few seconds behind Annabel! My tune shifted from "sure" to "We need your child!" Not only did Jared do an incredible job in the 10K but as we were leaving to hang out at Whole Foods, his dad and he were taking off to do yet another lap of the lake for a warm down! Jared and Gary live in Sunnyvale but Gary said they have family in Oakland so are up here all the time. Plus they run Brazen races. . .

Annabel wins! If you back a bit further you can see Jared. That's how close to Annabel he finished!

Sooo, Annabel won the women's division of the 10K with ease in a good time of 45:56. Zach won the 12 and under division and set an excellent new 5K P.R. of 22:32.

Zach runs a P.R.! No pains, no stitch (well, one started but went away). And a really, really good time considering he hasn't been doing running workouts for a while.

Jamie finishes fast!

Jamie finished second to Tristan in his age division and 12th overall in an outstanding 21:37. Nikhil ran a 23:51 and finished third in his age division. . . if Tristan joins we could call it a Raptors sweep of the podium! Laura ran a quick 28:04 to finish fifth in her age division.

Another race, another pile of loot.

For the time being at least those of us at today's race were so impressed by the all the plusses of these "fourth Sunday" races (easy to get there! It took me perhaps 10 minutes! Friendly, low tension ambiance. . . easy-to-follow course. Tons of nice people. . . ) that we're gonna make these a regular Raptors "fourth Sunday of the month" workout. Although the fourth Sunday for Dec. falls on the 25th so that might not happen!

Nolan finishes a spectacular 8th in State Meet!

November 26, 2011

Running in the always-tough division three, Raptors/Albany HS star Nolan finished EIGHTH in the State meet. He was hoping for a top 20 but he beat that by a long way. Nolan's time on the tough Clovis 5K course was 15:42. His mile splits (are you ready for this?) were 4:51, 5:10 and 5:42!

The last Albany runner to go to state was a kid named Sean Carey. He finished fourth in 2003 and ended up getting a "full ride" track/XC scholarship to CAL. In fact he still holds the CAL all-time record in the indoor 800 meters. Nolan beat Carey's time on the same course by over a minute, making him by every measure the finest distance runner in the history of Albany HS and yeah, the Raptors too!

Nolan finishes 6th at CIF North Coast Section meet. Qualifies easily for State!

Nolan ran a great race in a blistering 5K P.R. of 15:25 (!) and will be heading south to Clovis Friday morning to run in the State Championship XC meet on Saturday. Good luck, Nolan!!!