The Great Cow Harbor Run 10k race report

It was a great race weekend at the Cow Harbor 10k in Northport, NY. The race course as usual was totally tough with the rolling hills but that is part of the challenge and fun of it and the weather was perfect in the 50's. Two course records went down. The men's side saw Mo Trafeh blister a 28:17 taking down Ryan Hall's course record and in the woman's race Janet Cherobon-Bawcom raced to 32:26 also a course record.  Up and down the top 20 the competition was fierce as Will Fodor (the elite race director) put together the best elite race field in the history of the race -- packed with Olympic Trials qualifiers, Pan Am games participants, and future Olympians all lining it up.  Check out the race recap here.
 photo courtesy of Steve Pfost

ThunderDome Running was well represented in the race and showed up huge. Kathleen Fodor ran an awesome race placing 2nd in the master's division in a blazing 39:52. Laura Fitzgerald stepped up and ran well when it mattered in a solid 48:38. I have to mention I had a crummy day grinding out a 31:34 placing 12th, but was happy with the effort--so move on from there.

2012 will have a ThunderDome Running race field trip to the small island town of Northport. Plans are in the works for a group to make the trip to the 35th annual Cow Harbor 10k.  Please check back or email for further details.  This is a race you have to do one time in your life. After the race you can head into NYC (Northport is just an hour train ride/drive from NYC) or make a trek to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY. A great weekend of running, travel and fun.

Best Road Race Ever - The Great Cow Harbor 10k in Northport, NY

This weekend Saturday Sept 17 is the 34th annual Great Cow Harbor 10k in Northport, NY. This is one of the most fun and challenging races you will race.  Many runners measure themselves against the clock far too often, but the Cow Harbor 10k race course is a race where you can line it up and just compete.  By that I mean you have the opportunity to compete against a stellar competition - up and down the 5600 runner field - and you have the opportunity to compete against the most challenging hills you will ever see within a 10k race course.

The small island town of Northport's streets are are always lined with cheering running fans and the amazing scenery along the course is enough to distract you just a bit while you try to even split this race.  Up and down the race organizers and volunteers make this a top 100 race in all of the United States. I would rank it in the top ten though!  I have had the opportunity to race in Northport 6 out of the last 7 years.  It is just one of those races you have to experience one time the atmoshere and race buzz is very cool. Get the Great Cow Harbor 10k on your race field trip plan in the future.  Tackle one of the toughest 10k courses in the US and if you are lucky you will get to line it up and race against Olympians Ryan Hall or Deena Kastor in any given year.

ThunderDome Running's own Keith Mulhollon finishes 2nd in USA Master's 15k Road Champs!

The ThunderDome Racing team was in action last week with Keith Mulhollon from Lake Geneva, WI racing his way to a runner-up finish in the USA National Master's 15k road championship. The race was in Buffalo NY and featured a challenging rolling course.  Keith ran a solid time of 49:06 at a 5:17 mile pace clip.  It was one of those races where the initial race plan we set up went out the window early on as the race was full of surges and slowdowns.  Just a crazy race overall, but a race that if you are not fit and ready to roll in can go array with all the surging.

Keith is a great example of someone who is able to balance family, a career, and high school cross country/track coaching, all with his running. He is on of the top Master's runners in the United States right now, and it gives us all hope that you can still be fast and roll races even with hectic days.  All set on Keith's fall racing calendar is the Master's USATF National Club Cross Country championship race is Seattle, WA on December 10.

Running Movies

I came across a running movie the other day on Showtime with Michael Douglas starring. It was called Running. Never heard of this movie before kind of cheese, kind of inspiring, kind of motivating but worth a watch.  Check it out.

A new Record for ThunderDome Running PR's

It was an awesome weekend for racing. Temps. and humidity were ideal and it is that time of the training where things just start to click.  Over the weekend ThunderDome Running had runners racing in Washington, Connecticut, New York, and right here in Milwaukee, WI.

 Alex Burlingame had the biggest lifetime PR over the weekend in his 10k in Washington, he raced a 2 minute PR in 41:52.  Alex is rolling towards the Chicago marathon on October 10.  Frank Silva from CT raced a 5k PR over the weekend in 20:24, Frank is training towards hitting a Boston Marathon qualifier with a spring 2012 marathon.  Kathy and Patrick both rolled 5k PR's at the Irish Fest run here in Milwaukee in times of  24:09 & 20:49 respectively and are racing Chicago in a few weeks.

Congrats to everyone!

Welcome to the Show - Keith Mulhollon - joins ThunderDome Racing

It was a busy week for the ThunderDome Running race team.  ThunderDome added one of the top Master's runners in the United States to the race team - Keith Mullhollon from Lake Geneva, WI.  Keith and I traveled to Cedar Rapids to race in the CVRA 5th Season Races - the Alliant Energy 8k. It was a stacked field and temps/humidity were high, but hey you know what you are getting when you line it up to race on July 4 in the midwest.

Keith raced to a 23rd place overall finish and won the male master's top spot racing a solid 25:41 8k.  I ended up running 24:49 and finished 16th overall.

 

If you are interested in joining the ThunderDome Racing team please feel free to email us at info@thunderdomerunning.com.

 

A Little Running Math Problem/Contest...Help!

Runners like to be precise and not cut corners really in anything we do.  You know before GPS/Garmin's or Map My Run...you just sometimes kind of had to guess on your route distances hoping the routes were the actual distance you logged for like a couple of years before you had a true measurement.  I just got back from vacation and some altitude training in Crested Butte, Colorado at 9000 feet where I did a 400m (or close to it) workout where I finished feeling guilty.

I was able to get in some fun and tough training in the mountains of Crested Butte, CO. The town had an asphalt track at the high school which was perfect because there were a couple of races coming up on my race schedule so I wanted to get in something quicker even though it would be more challenging at altitude.

The workout was 12 x 400m on 60 seconds rest.  During the warm-up I had the GPS/Garmin out to kind of make sure the track was pretty close to 1/4 mile (not an exact measurement either but that is all I had to go by), with the first measure I found the track turned out to be short on the regular markings on one lap being short of 400m so I added on a bit just to make sure the distance was covered in each interval and began the workout.  The workout ended up going well and was happy with the effort and result ending up averaging 66.3 per repeat.  I was suspect about things though so I re-measured the track after the workout and my interval markings ended up being about (16 feet) short/under 1/4 mile per interval for the intervals I ran.

The blog question of the day and your chance to get some free swag (ThunderDome T shirt) is as follows.  With the intervals being 16 feet short of an actual 1/4 mile, how many meters on each repeat did I actually do when converted to meters? Was the workout like 12 x 390m or 12 x 375m or was it pretty close to 400m based on the 1/4 mile distance compared to a 400m track interval?  I am looking for the actual meter repeat distance......first correct answer wins. 

Good Luck