Back in Action! Striders off to a Good Start in 2016

A Strider at the OT Marathon

This year the Striders got to watch as one of our own raced at the Olympic Marathon Trials in LA.  Julia Roman-Duval ran a solid race in hot and largely shade-less conditions, bringing home a very impressive 2:46:47.  That was good for 50th place against the best female marathoners the US has to offer, in weather which caused many strong participants to drop out.  Great job Julia!

RRCA Ten Mile Challenge

A year after a disappointing weather-based cancellation, the Ten Mile Challenge returned with several Striders achieving top performances as well as PRs.

In the team competition the HCS Elite Men, Women, and Combined teams performed admirably.  The Women's team had the top two overall finishers (Julia and Caroline Bauer) who helped drive the team to a second place finish.  The Men's team came in third against some very tough competition (Falls Road put runners in five of the top six spots) and the Overall HCS team also came in third.

Carlos Renjifo bringing it home in 7th as the first Strider

New Strider Eric Schuler takes 8th

Julia takes 1st place at the Club Challenge

Not far behind is Caroline, taking 2nd place in some sweet shades

Hats off to everyone who came out.  The weather was beautiful, but the course was as tough as ever!  Below are a few more photos from the race (credit to Mike Fleming for the photos in today's post).  Enjoy!

Members of the second place Women's team

Members of the 3rd Place Men's Team

RRCA 10 Mile Club Challenge Registration NOW OPEN!

Registration is NOW OPEN for this race.  For those on the racing team, this race is mandatory unless you are injured.  We need everyone to bring their A-game if we are going to have a chance against our cross town rivals...FALLS ROAD

I believe the race is capped at 1,000 runners so don't wait too long to sign up.

http://www.striders.net/races/rrca/2013/registration/

RRCA Challenge 2012

This past weekend, the Howard County Striders hosted the annual RRCA Challenge in their home turf of Columbia, MD.  In addition to posting the highest ever number of finishers in the history of the event (680), the competition was arguably the best the race has ever seen.  44 men finished the hilly course in under an hour and 22 women finished inside of 70 minutes.

The Striders finished 2nd in all categories (male, female, coed) to a dominant Falls Road team that nearly swept the top 10 in the men's side and put 4 women in front of the Strider's first finisher.

Racing team member performances included:

Carlos Renjifo (3rd, 53:20, PR)
Andrew Madison (11th, 56:18)
Kevin Ford (24th, 58:03, PR)
Kent Werner (27th, 58:07)
Mark Buschman (29th, 58:09)

Keith Levasseur (39th, 59:39)
Conrad Orloff (40th, 59:41)
Peter Keating (41st, 59:42)
Jason Tripp (42nd, 59:43)

Adam Wytko (49th, 1:00:34)

Phil Lang (68th, 1:02:22)
John Chall (128th, 1:06:11)

Caroline Bauer (11th, 1:07:36)
Robyn Humphrey (12th, 1:07:42)
Pat Wilkerson (14th, 1:07:56)
Janeth Scott (40th, 1:14:15)

The teams also got strong support from a few other Striders.  On the women's side, Unsong Ostrowski (7th, 1:05:30, top Strider woman), Perla Rodriguez (15th, 1:08:07), and Mary Rzegocki (23rd, 1:10:13) ran great races to round out the female scoring.  For the men, Filagot Dinku (12th, 56:59), Andrew Parlette (13th, 56:59), Tom Williams (15th, 57:22), Seth Geoghegan (26th, 58:07), and Craig Lebro (33rd, 58:33) contributed to the scoring.

Full Results:

-- Courtesy of Howard County Striders

Pictures:
-- Courtesy  of Howard County Striders
-- Courtesy of Running Maryland

Videos:
-- Courtesy of Running Maryland
-- Courtesy of Falls Rd (Mile 1, Mile 4 (Pt 1), Mile 4 (Pt 2))