On
Sunday, February 18, 2018
TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIP DUAL MEET WAS A SUCCESS
In the January 28th running column here, I
suggested that road runners could run a 5K indoors. While my suggestion was slightly tongue in
cheek, 11 men, and two women did run the 5,000 meter race at the Ocean Breeze
indoor track and field facility on Staten Island this past Sunday.
It was a dual meet between the New York association and New
Jersey. Others from outside the two
associations were excluded, causing many other athletes such as ones from the
Long Island association and MidAtlantic to be quite unhappy. As this was the first time for the event to
be run as a dual meet, there is talk of making it a “tri-meet in 2019 and
scoring all the others as a single group.
New Jersey outscored the home association 264 to 184 on the
women’s side and 404 to 183 on the men’s side.
The highest scoring women’s club was Bella N Motion with 120 points over
second place Shore Athletic club with 82 points with the Raritan Valley Road
Runners third with 80 points.
The Shore Athletic Club far outscored all the men’s clubs
with 485 points but the Morris area Garmin club pulled in 176 points for second
place. Local long distance runners
represented a good many of the track athletes.
Reno and Susan Stirrat of Rockaway hung up their cross
country spikes and changed into track spikes for the meet. Susan Stirrat was the work horse in the
family. She started off with running the
mile in 7:28.75, then the 800 meters in 3:39.79 and finished her day with the
3,000 meters in 15:15.4. Hubby Reno
focused all of his energies on the 3,000 and finished in 11:22.59.
Kevin Higgins of Randolph traded in his marathon shoes for
track spikes to win the M55 division in the mile in 5:32.4. The mile race that drew the most attention
was the heat with Gary Rosenberg of Morristown, still sporting injuries from
his fall at the Millrose Games relay, attempting to break five minutes in order
to keep his sub five streak alive.
Rosenberg had missed it in previous attempts this season. He was ready to go and his Garmin teammates
were there to spur him on. With a 4:21
split with one more lap to go Rosenberg picked up the pace to hit 35.9 for the
last lap and a finishing time of 4:57.254.
The Garmin team nearly took over the track for the 800 meter
run. Five Garmin men out of the six in
the M50 finished: Peter Kashulines of
Mountain Lakes in 2:10.5 was first, then Tom Metz of Denville in 2:33.63 in
second, John Hanlon of Riverdale in 2:37.50 for fourth, Angelo Harasts of Pine
Brook in 2:38.7 and Richard Carlson of Boonton in 2:45.43. Harasts also ran the mile, finishing in 5:43.51
Mark Williams of Columbia, still recovering from the
exhibition Masters Mile at the New Balance Games the day before in Boston, won
the 800 meters M45 division in 2:02.74. Robert
Skorupski of Rockaway finished in third
in the division in 2:13.07. At the other
end of the age spectrum, John Saarmann, M75, of Stanhope finished the 800
meters in 3:53.16 and the 400 meters in 1:39.27.
By far the biggest buzz of the meet was Nora Cary of
Morristown, running in her first ever indoor track meet. The 62 year old finished the mile in 6:27.75 that
age graded at 91.16% and the 3,000 meters in 12:55.39 for an 89.5% PLP.
Lori McGill of Budd Lake did the same double and medaled in
both events as well.
The Garmin club put together an M40 and M50 4 X 800 relay
team to add a few more points to their tally, knowing that the Shore AC, with
all their sprinters and field event men would outscore them.
Although from outside the Morris area it is worth noting
that an enthusiastic group of Raritan Valley Road Runners women ran in
distances from the 60 meter dash up to the 3,000 meters and did both the 4 X
400 and 4 X 800 to gather points for their club.
##
Race Results can often be
found at www.compuscore.com or at www.bestrace.com
A calendar of USATF
sanctioned events can be found at www.usatfnj.org
or at www.raceforum.com for running and
tri and biathlon events.
Contact Madeline Bost at madelinebost@verizon.net
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