Roadkill Racing

December 9, 2014

Roadkill Rebirth of Slick (AKA Cool Like Dat, AKA PGXC Series 2014)

I have been struggling to write this post. I am torn between my excitement for how much the team has grown, how hard everyone competed all season and the final results. There were so many positives for Roadkill Racing this fall and I want to make sure I celebrate and share them all without tainting them with my own unrealistic expectations. So let me get the unrealistic expectations out of the way then we can move on to the celebrating of everyone’s accomplishments.

The Roadkill Masters team finished second to GVH in the series scoring after leading in points the first 4 races. We actually ended up tied in points because of an early season drubbing GVH took, but GVH owned the tie breaker with 3 wins to our 2. Considering I didn’t even think we would have a masters team a week before the season started I should be thrilled we came so close, but perhaps the closeness is what made it such a bitter pill to swallow. I’m proud that we pushed a team that has dominated so thoroughly for so long the brink, and I have high hopes for next season. We have a great team of masters runners and we only look to be better next year.

1st GVH 24 – 2,6,4,6,6
2nd Roadkill 24 – 6,4,6,4,4
3rd High Noon AC 13 – 4,3,3,3
4th Syracuse TC 9 – 3,2,2,2

Our individual masters runners all had a stand out series. With 5 finishing in the top 10 of individual points.

1st Joshua Perks
2nd Derrick Jones
3rd Mike Nier
4th Brian Lazzaro
5th Alex Colvin
6th Joseph Williams
7th Jim Park
8th Scott Bickham
9th Jamie Hobbs
10th Thomas Mullins

Last year we did not have men’s open team. This year we fielded a team at every race. We returned a few runners from last year (Matt, Drew, Kenny and Brett) added a few new members (Dave, Kraig, Andy, Mark and Dan) and we saw the return of Pete from the injured reserve. This season the open men were lead by Dave Rappleyea who started the season fighting back from injury and raced himself into the top 10 finishing 9th overall in series points. Dave was followed closely (and sometimes led) by Kenny who finished 10th in series points despite running a marathon mid-series.

The team finished 3rd behind STC and GVH, beating out Cornell Running Club and Checkers.

I’ve saved the most surprising team for last. The Roadkill ladies.

As of last March there was no Roadkill women’s team, but under the dedicated leadership of Ashlie Roberts a team quickly coalesced. By the first race in the series the women had done a few months of weekly workouts and were ready to race. By the end of the series 14 women were racing for Roadkill.

The ladies ran hard all fall both in the series races and on the roads with many of them running PR’s in distances from 5k to the marathon. They are fired up for next year and are also on the lookout for a few 40+ year-olds to join Heather on a masters team.

I can’t help but think that it was the addition of the women’s team that helped spur the growth of the men’s open and men’s masters team.

Here’s to a great cross country series and looking toward many more!

August 8, 2014

Onward to the Jenny Kuzma Bergen Road Race USATF-Niagara 5k Road Championships

Tomorrow will be my 5th Bergen Road Race. Some of the last 4 have gone well and some have gone very poorly.

2010 17:23 (suffering from heart palpitations)
2011 16:15
2012 16:28
2013 17:12 (on antibiotics for a 5 week bout of bronchitis)

This year I’ve managed to come down with a cold after spending 10 days at the beach. Which, I suppose is better than coming down with a cold before spending 10 days at the beach. Luckily this year Roadkill Racing has a ton of runners, both men and women, to pick up any slack I might lay down.

Women’s Team

Ashlie Roberts
Lindsay Rynder
Erin Mahoney
Lisa Perks
Molly Romano
Monique Golossi
Lauryn Recchia
Heather Ostrander
Lynn Gottfried

Men’s Team

Joshua Perks
Dan Snitzer
Matthew Roberts
Joe Williams
Andrew Caffrey
Peter Gratien
Brett Smith
Adam Staveski

Good luck to all my fellow Roadkill Racers. Run Tough!

April 14, 2014

Sweeps Week

Every competitive runner eventually learns that winning a race isn’t as much about them, as it is about who shows up. Unless you are the world record holder someone faster than you can always toe the line. Some might see this as fatalistic, or dis-empowering but I see it as freeing. Instead of worrying about things you can’t control you get to focus on the things you can, namely running your own race.

But it is still nice to win a race and it is better still when your team sweeps the top 3 spots. Even better than that? What if your men’s and women’s team sweep the top 3 spots of their respective races on the same weekend? That is pretty damn sweet no matter who else toed the line.

Friday was the debut of the Roadkill Racing women’s team. Ashlie Roberts, Erin Mahoney and Lisa Perks were the first women to line up wearing their new Roadkill singlets at the Emergency Nurses 5k at Monroe Community College (Drew Caffrey was there too but I’ll get to that later.)

I have no idea what was going on to the right but it must have been pretty funny.

It was a small first year event, but it was well organized and the weather could not have been better. I have a feeling the other runners were a bit intimated by the Roadkill ladies in their blood red singlets. Ashlie, Erin and Lisa wasted no time separating themselves from the rest of the women in the field.

Drew Caffrey was at the race representing the Roadkill men, and while he stated before the race his only goal was no to get hurt (he’s running Boston in a week) I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be able to resist going for the win.

Sure enough when the leaders came into view he was right behind the leader, and as they rounded the corner with 100 meters to go he sprinted past Kevin Scheehan to take first place in 18:01.

It wasn’t long before the ladies arrived, all of them finishing in the top 10 overall.

Taking a break from her own running to cheer on the team

Nurse’s 5k Results Here

Saturday it was the time for some of the Roadkill men to take to the track. Dave, Kenny and I raced the 10000 meters at the Naz Roc City Classic. For reasons I do not fully understand in road races we say 5k or 10k but on the track it’s 5000 meters or 10000 meters. Whether you call it a 10k or 10000 meters when you do it on the track you have to run 25 laps. This is not nearly as fun as it might sound.

Yes those are 4 women next to me at the start. The meet has 76 men doing the 1500 and 26 in the 5000, but only 8 in the 10000 so they put the 4 Naz women in with us.

Running 25 laps can get a bit confusing. At some point in the race I lost track of who I was passing and who I was lapping. This caused me to move into 3rd place without even realizing it sometime during the last mile.

I’m really glad I decided to run this race, but I don’t think I’ll be jumping into any track races longer than 5000 meters again. It is a mental grind as much as it is a physical one. One that Kenny fully embraced. He broke from the small lead pack early and challenged the track record of 32:25 missing it by a mere 3 seconds! Dave, who was suffering from some lower leg issues in the middle part of the race took second place, closing with an impressive last mile.

I finished in 3rd place completing the Roadkill sweep with a 43 second PR 33:49. All in all it was a hell of weekend for Roadkill Racing.

Naz Results Here

I’m so proud of all my teammates and I’m thankful for Ashlie taking charge and putting our women’s team together. There is something oddly sexy about seeing my wife in Roadkill singlet, even if she hates the fact is says Beer & Glory on the front.

Bonus footage of Hazel warming up. Look at that focus!

March 17, 2014

Johnny’s Runnin’ of the Green (AKA Freezeroo #7)

While not quite as cold as some of this year’s Freezeroos, the dampness and 15-25 mph winds certainly made it feel wintery enough at what is the unofficial Spring kick-off race in Rochester, NY. Johnny’s Runnin’ of the Green 5 miler, which annually draws about 2000 runners, is the first race of the year when all the fast guys come out of hibernation and remind us that dominating the Freezeroo series isn’t the same as being a dominant racing team.

Despite being out gunned at the very top of the race we still managed to put 3 runners in the top 10 going 6-7-8. Personally it was my first time cracking the top 10 and amazingly it was Dave’s first time running Johnny’s!

Kenny in full on beast mode once again finished 6th in 26:47. — Kenny, in full on beast mode once again, finished 6th in 26:47.

Dave finished 7th in his Johnny’s debut and is ready to start doing some speedwork.

8th place and a 5:15 last mile, I can’t wait for nice racing weather.

We may run for Beer & Glory but wine isn’t too bad either.

It was tough race for Derrick in his Roadkill Racing debut, but he was smart to shut it down and protect those legs for the rest of the season. Dave and Derrick are both targeting the Buffalo Marathon in late May as their Spring goal races.

Johnny’s 2014 Results

In other Roadkill news Matt and Ashlie were down in North Carolina running in the Tobacco Road Marathon along with some of the ladies from Brockport Distance Project. Both finished the race and still have legs, as far as I’m concerned that is a win where marathons are concerned.