(4/8-4/14): GSTC Sweeps 15k Team Titles; 8 Qualify for Nationals; College Ave Mile Update

Only a Few Spots Left.....

The New Jersey Marathon has asked the GSTC to manage the baggage check for over 10,000 runners on Sunday morning, May 5th.  We need 40 people, and we only have a few spots left.  Since they are paying us to do it, any helper will get around $50 to put toward gear, racing entries fees, or travel.  Please respond immediately to this email...first come, first serve, and there ain't many more spots to serve!

Team Stuff

Get GSTC gear here.

Get those 2013 dues in here- become a member!

College Ave Mile Update: Two Months Away

The website is up and running, and we are just TWO MONTHS AWAY from the GSTC's spring team and individual fundraiser.  You ready for a mile race, a relay, a beer garden, a BBQ, a dunk tank, and five other games?????

Here's how it works: each GSTC member will get his/her own CODE.  This enables the runner to a 15% off discount.  Meanwhile, every runner you get to sign up you get to split that profit with the club.  The funds you raise can go directly to buying new gear, race entry fees, travel costs, etc.  It is a part of the RRCA-NJ Grand Prix, so we gotta get the word out ASAP!    

 

Team Runs: Warm Weather, At Last!

Monday         5:30 run @ Rutgers Student Center (New Brunswick)

                      5:30 track workout @ Highland Park High School

Tuesday         5:30 run at RSC

Wednesday    3:30 run at RSC

                      6:15 run at Morristown Running Company (Morristown)

                      6:00 track workout @ HPHS (****change- start 30min later*****)

                      6:30 track workout at Point Pleasant HS track (GSTC Beach Enclave)

Thursday        5:30 run at RSC

Thursday        5:30 run at Princeton towpath (parking lot off washington road)

Friday            4:30run at RSC

Saturday        TRACK MEET at Rider University (email us if interested!)

Sunday          9:00am team run at Duke Farms (1112 Duke Parkway West Hillsborough, NJ)  Bring money for brunch afterward!

 

Sunday: Men, Women Sweep 15k Team Titles

Goglas, Belgiovine, Price Go 1-2-3 as Men Go 1-2 in Team Scores

Middletown- The Garden State Track Club didn't let a few hills, and the state's least enjoyable race, get in the way of business.  

 

Ken Goglas, Mike Belgiovine, and Kyle Price swept the top three spots at the 15k Team Grand Prix Championships today, helping lead the team to yet another 1-2 team sweep of the top two team spots.  The win gave the men's team their 14th straight victory- the longest winning streak in USATF-NJ history for any team in any division.  See the video of the start here.

The "A Team" finished with an overall team time of 4:28:24, and it consisted of Goglas (50:38- $300 prize money), Price (50:40, $100 prize money), Andrew Capizzi (52:32), Stephen Comanto (55:31), TJ Zablocki (59:01), Francis Beideman (71:07), and Peter Auteri (72:28).

The "B Team" finished second overall in a total team time of 4:35:34, over 28 minutes in front of Sneaker Factory, the third place team.  Belgiovine (50:39) was the top man, with teammates Stephen Mennitt (51:59), Chuck Schneekloth (54:13), Edsel Flores (58:45), Marty Doherty (59:57), and Eric Davis (66:18) rounding out the rest of the team scoring.

  

 

Ogletree, Sieve, Douma Go 1-2-4 as Women Win Big

It was "Sun's out, gun's out" for the GSTC ladies this morning, as they flexed their muscles under the crisp Jersey beach air to roll to a huge win at the Indian Trails 15k team championships.

The quartet of Cheyenne Ogletree (56:27), Greta Sieve (56:59), Alyssa Douma (61:05), and Shanna Beairsto (69:02) straight wholly-whopped the competition, finishing in an overall team time of 4:03, an incredible 18 minutes faster than the second place team.  GSTC's top two ladies demolished the course record set by Catherine Smith in 2011 of 60:19.

Ogletree won $300 for finishing 1st, and Sieve, making her gold and black debut, took home $200 for her silver medal efforts.  Beairsto, who just has way too many vowels for us to handle right now in her last name, had a fantastic debut for the GSTC as well, coming in as the fourth and final scoring women.

Rounding out the team's other runners were Danielle Stanton (73:09), Cathy Stutzman (73:09), Erin Blum (73:56- GSTC debut), Christine Mockenhaupt (89:36- GSTC debut), Prudence Jones (100:05- one minute PR)

Although the women's results need to be corrected on several fronts, they can all be found here,  

Harris, Brito, Heibell Lead GSTC at Princeton Invite

Princeton- The GSTC opened their spring track season at the Sam Howell Invitational, and already eight athletes qualified for club nationalsin late June.

Mike Brito was the highest finisher for the team, as his sloppy 54.88 in the 400IH finished 9th overall.  Tony Harris (1:54.25) and Ricardo Garcia (1:57.24- two second PR) both qualified in the 800m, as did Ken Goglas (14:48) and Tim Morgan (15:05) in the 5,000m, Chris Heibell in the 1500m (3:55.98), Joe Lafleur in the 400m (50.86), and Julius Fredrick in the 200m (22.52).

Perhaps the most exciting race of the day was the 4x400, where Harris splits 49.4 and brings the Gold and Black from 4th to 2nd in the final 50m.  Brito (50.6), Garcia (50.1), and Lafleur (50.3) helped bring the baton across in 3:21.02--nearly 1.5 seconds faster than the team's time there in 2012.  The B and C Teams ran well, except the anchor of the B Team....don't get us started.

Also competing for GSTC were Dharan Kadiyala (1500m), Sara Douma (TJ), Amr Gharseldin (100m), and the women's 4x400 relay.

See all the results here. 

Steady Striders and Couch to 5k by Amy Denholtz

The steady striders and couch to 5k runners had a busy weekend, with a group running 3.1 on the tow path today and other runners racing in the Indian Trails 15k and one runner completing the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC.  This upcoming weekend, the group will run with the full GSTC team on Sunday, April 14th at TIME at Duke Farms in Hillsborough.  A map of Duke Farms is available at: http://www.dukefarms.org/en/Visit/Plan-Your-Visit/Map/Overview/  Email Amy at adenholtz@gmail.com with any questions or to RSVP.  

Volunteer at the Unite Half Marathon & 8k Expo - Saturday April 20th at Rutgers by Amy Denholtz
The GSTC is looking for volunteers to be at the Rutgers Unite Half Marathon and 8k Expo on Saturday, April 20th.  The Expo is from 9am - 4pm (setup begins at 8:30am) and our table will be recruiting for the team and promoting the College Ave Mile and the RRCA-NJ Grand Prix races.  Can you volunteer for an hour or two?  Please fill out the survey and let us know when you are available, at http://doodle.com/2bivr6nsncrzvrai.  Email Amy at adenholtz@gmail.com with any questions.

Gold Star: Celebrating Awesome Team Members

by Ashwin Anantharaman

Geoffrey Blough 

Geoffrey is one of the newest additions to the Garden State Track Club in our 40 or over division. He started running in August 2010 and after attending few races he decided it would be wise to join a club to train with. The ultimate decision came down between Shore AC and Garden State Track Club and the deciding factor surprisingly was the prestigious Tim Morgan Award. According to Geoffrey, since Shore AC had no Tim Morgan award, they were out of the running for his services. He decided to announce this decision on a live ESPN broadcast to commit his talents to the Garden State Track Club. Before races Geoffrey focuses on stretching as he really works on trying to prevent his calf from tightening up and his previously ruptured achilles from giving out on him. He ran the April Fools Half Marathon today in an amazing 2:07:10 as he said it was a learning experience. He has a BA in Philosophy and BS in finance and loves working in his backyard trying to make it more appealing to the general public. In high school he was a thrower and a hurdler but decided to take his talents to longer distance running where his current idol is Chuck Schneekloth, the current Tim Morgan Award Champion. Goals include running under 7:19 for a mile and under 25:26 for a 5k and of he apparently wants to dethrone his idol Chuck and take home that Tim Morgan award.

Erin Blum 

Erin joined the Garden State Track Club because she wanted to run faster and win medals. It is obvious that she also realized that we are the best looking club in the nation as well. She's been running since junior high school cross country but took some time off in between that and her running career now. Pre race she likes to warm up until her nose runs and sit till the gun goes off. It obviously works because at the Indian Trails 15k she ran a very impressive time of 74 minutes. Indian Trails is a very tough and hilly course for over 9 miles!!!!! During the race she said at mile 5.5 she was wishing it was a 10k but the blue sky view of the Verrazano Bridge and New York City at mile 8 made it all worth it. Outside of running Erin has 4 daughters ages 6,4,3 and 1 and they are her priority along with eating brownies. Her goals for the season is to break 20 in the 5k because she ran 2140 a few weekends ago. She acknowledges that this is a tough goal but with the help of the excellent coaching of Rob DeCarlo and great teammates to train with there is no doubt that she will be able to do especially with her running faster than ever in 15 years!!!!

TMA: Long Overdue

The master himself, Timmy Morgan, was at it again this week.  This time, he emailed us the "2013 heat sheets" for the Princeton meet, alarmed that Ken Goglas didn't make the cut for the 5k.  In a panic, GSTC Headquarters quickly emailed the Princeton meet management, only to hear that Ken was, in fact, accepted into the meet. 

 

A closer look at the link Timmy sent us and we realized, ugggh, it was from 2012.  Shame on Tim for acting in haste, and shame on us for not triple checking his work (although we did go to the PU website looking for validation....now we know why we couldn't find it)

 

A second nomination goes to the USATF-NJ for continuing to vote the Indian Trails 15k on the team championship circuit.  This race sucks....let's just say it.  Along with being a devastingly painful, hilly course which turns runners off (there's a reason why there aren't many frequent flyers), it screwed up the awards for a second year in a row, and it still doesn't have an address on the website, resulting in three GSTC athletes getting lost.  If the USATF-NJ truly hopes to grow the sport of road running in this state, it needs to select large, fun races that have a history of growth.  As one of our top women said today, "That was the last time I'm ever runing this race again."

 

A final nomination goes to Ed Neighbour, the USATF-NJ Executive Committee President.  This morning, upon handing in our team declaration sheets, he said with snarky sarcasm to one of our female members, "Oh, you mean you aren't going to have an A, B, C, D, E, and F team today?"  Look, how about a "Good morning" or "Thanks for coming" or somethng with a little more twinge of positivity and customer service?  While we wanna just say, "Don't hate...appreciate!", we also wanna say, in all seriousness, how about a little professionalism.  Perhaps it isn't helping his cause that the last two GSTC emails sent to the USATF-NJ office, asking for confirmation of residence verification, have been ignored. without response this week.

 

 

This Week in Training

Monday - Recovery run if you raced the 15k.  Otherwise go the standard Monday run and hill sprints.  If a good hill isn't available for you, you can do some in-and-out 150s instead.  This means you break up the 150 into three segments.  Use the first 50 to accelerate, run the middle 50 all out, then decelerate the last 50.  The hill sprints are a better choice, especially if it's grass.
Tuesday - If you raced on Sunday - make this a very off-the-clock fartlek.  You choose the number of cycles, the duration of the cycles and the recovery intervals.  Take it completely by feel.  If you didn't race, let's hit up those 2ks.  Run 3 at T pace, with 3 mins rest, then follow it up with a HARD 800.  How quick can you go?
Wednesday - steady-state run of 75% LR duration
Thursday - super easy 40-60 minutes and strides
Friday - If you raced Sunday, do Tuesday's workout.  If you didn't race, go for some more shorter stuff: 6x600 at 2M race pace with 2minutes rest.
Saturday - same as Monday.

Sunday - long run!