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Striders triumvirate maintains balancing act
By JOE SHAFRAN
In these first few days of 2007, I can safely say that I have now seen everything. What I observed at the New Year’s morning run at City Dock in Annapolis this past Monday allows me to say it. This is the race where about a hundred fifty intrepid souls gathered and ran 5 miles in and around Annapolis. As someone said, this race has a providential aura about it. It was a rainy New Years Day Monday. However, about ten minutes before the 9 o’clock start, the rain stopped and a pea soup thick fog lifted, at least at Annapolis City Dock. This is the race where there’s no registration, thus no hold harmless disclaimer to be signed at the bottom of a form. As a matter of fact, there is no form. It’s been this way for years... However, we must be getting to be a litigious society, because one of the organizers of this run, a lawyer in town, Adeline Welch, must be getting a bit squeamish about no disclaimer. So, as the race was about to begin, her CO-organizer, a man by name of Ashley Halsey, gets up on a chair and not only shouts out the route of the run but for the first time, asks everyone to do an oral disclaimer. He asks all the runners to raise their right hand and swear they will not sue anybody for anything that morning. He promised a neat T-shirt to all 150 finishers if they don’t cause trouble. A fellow wearing shorts with the words Grove City College on them, came in first in about 28 minutes. No finish line tally, so I didn’t get his name. And he may have been parked at a 30 minute meter and just kept running to his car. There is no awards ceremony but in second or third place by my calculation, were the Walsers, Junior and Senior of Lusby, just seconds apart, Junior in front. And still, steadfastly denying that he ran this same race last year in a red jump suit, Annapolis lawyer Gill Cochran, finishing among the first ten, ran the race wearing what seemed to be a tailor-made blue and white Armani running outfit. This is the race that is seen live around the world. Lawyer Welch claims they have a mini cam screwed on to the roof of a downtown liquor store, hooked up to the Annapolis website.
Anyway, here we are into the New Year, with a run any day of the week somewhere in the world, it was nice to see that the Capital included running in its listing of the 2006 sports highlights showing a very modest 17 year old Matt Centrowitz, the Broadneck High cross-country phoneme who breezed in first last August in the Annapolis ten miler.
And while we are into accolades, let me give my nominations for runners of the year, three local men who have a few years on Centrowitz, three fellows who I think will someday make it to the Running Hall of Fame at Utica New York for if nothing else, for exhibiting their superhuman strength. They are Ron Bowman, Will Myers and Charles “Charlie” Muskin, all of this area, all long-time dedicated Striders. In addition to the time they spend running and training, they do have families and day jobs. Bowman, a Naval Academy grad is with NASA in Washington, D.C., Myers is the principal at South River High School at Edgewater, and Muskin, a lawyer, is a Master in the Anne Arundel County Court system. In addition to some of their shorter runs last year, Bowman did 7 marathons, 3 ultras and 3 triathlons, Myers did 7 marathons and three ultras and Muskin did 6 marathons, 3 ultras and as reported by his good friend John Curley (a friend at least before this column appears), a “one hundred mile run attempted (dropped at 62 miles”). However, Curley in his report to me redeemed himself by saying that there were others around here who have done 100 K’s, hundred mile races plus some who have qualified for Boston and the Western States 100. Our wish is to keep seeing this triumvirate and the others in good health in races of any distance in 2007 and beyond.
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Some running hints I got from reading about Richard Magin, who the editors of Marathon and Beyond feature this month:
In planning your marathon pace , remember the advice your high school teachers gave you for taking multiple choice exams - don’t change your answers at the last minute.
When planning your race pace, work out the time for four equally spaced distances so they can be easily remembered and write them somewhere on your body.
If the race starts after 8 A.M, eat a full breakfast. Turkish nougat (protein bar) is fine for topping the tank before a half marathon, but it will not get you through a full marathon.
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Running Calendar
Sun. Feb. 10. 10 AM. Valetine’s Day 5k. Kinder farm Park.. Call Ellen McGee. 410.987-.8809. The 2006 winnng time to beat in 2007 is about 19 minutes.
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