01 Wednesday Jan 2020
Posted in News, Race Results, Stories
“Wring Out the Old, Ring in the New” began inauspiciously 20 years ago on Dec. 31. The 21st running was an interesting one in that there were several ideas of how to run the course among the 12 participants (and two canine entrants).
A fun time was had by all. Two runners (CRR Michael Chajes and CRR Luke Nigro) took part for the first time. This year’s event was organized by CRR Bill Rose and featured refreshments at the end of the run.
16 Saturday Nov 2019
Creek Road Runners are proud to recognize one of its own, CRR Sue Barton, as a world champion!
A longtime triathlete, Barton has recently become involved in the CrossFit craze—billed as the “sport of fitness.” Competing for the team UD CrossFit, the 60-year-old Barton recently bested 635 other women worldwide in the 60-69 age group within the slightly easier “scaled” (as opposed to the “prescribed” or “Rx”) category in the CrossFit Games, held over a five-week period from October 11 to November 8 all over the world in separate CrossFit venues.
The CrossFit Games involved five events (workouts) meant to challenge one’s strength, agility, and stamina within a timed and judge-certified environment. Each workout takes place over the period of a weekend and is announced on a Thursday.
As in a cross-country meet, the lowest score combining five workout places is the winner. Barton’s total of 79 points bettered American women who placed second with 88 points and third with 99 points, respectively. She was tops in the world in the third workout, which certainly gave her a good edge on the title.
Other Creek Road Runners who competed in the Rx open division for the UD CrossFit team, which placed 3,565th worldwide and 10th among teams within the state of Delaware, included CRR Andrew Weber, CRR Barret Michalec, and CRR Anja Leefeldt. Weber, who also certified four of Barton’s five workouts, placed 4th among the 16 male UD CrossFit competitors in the Rx division; Michalec placed 12th. Leefeldt was 10th among the UD CrossFit women in the Rx division.
The five workouts included:
Workout One (Time cap: 15 minutes)
10 rounds for time of:
8 ground-to-overheads, 45 lb.
10 bar-facing burpees
Workout Two (Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:)
4 dumbbell thrusters
6 sit-ups
24 single-unders
15-lb. dumbbells
Workout Three (For time; Time cap: 9 min.)
21 deadlifts, 80 lb.
21 hand-release knee push-ups
15 deadlifts, 80 lb.
15 hand-release knee push-ups
9 deadlifts, 80 lb.
9 hand-release knee push-ups
21 deadlifts, 105 lb.
50-ft. bear crawl
15 deadlifts, 105 lb.
50-ft. bear crawl
9 deadlifts, 105 lb.
50-ft. bear crawl
Workout Four (For time; Time cap: 20 min.)
30 box jumps, 16 in.
15 clean and jerks, 35 lb.
30 box jumps, 16 in.
15 clean and jerks, 45 lb.
30 box jumps, 16 in.
10 clean and jerks, 65 lb.
30 medicine-ball step-ups, 14 lb.
10 clean and jerks, 75 lb.
30 medicine-ball step-ups, 14 lb.
5 clean and jerks, 85 lb.
30 medicine-ball step-ups, 14 lb.
5 clean and jerks, 105 lb.
Workout Five (For time, partitioned in any way; Time cap: 20 min.)
40 jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups
80-cal. row
120 wall-ball shots, 10-lb. ball to 8 ft.
Here are Barton’s scores and world ranking among 60-69-yr.-olds in each of the five CrossFit Games competitive workouts (click to see larger view).
Barton is a professor and Extension Specialist in plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware.
23 Tuesday Apr 2019
Tags
Pretty fast in his own right at age 50, University of Delaware professor and CRR Bill Farquhar has followed his kinesiology and applied physiology research into the realm of a world-class septuagenarian runner.
On April 15, Gene Dykes, at age 71, became a record-breaker in his age group at the Boston Marathon again this year, clocking an absurd 2:58:50. Back in December, he had ran an even faster marathon—2:54 and change.
CRR Bill Farquhar (left) observes Gene Dykes pushing himself to exhaustion on the treadmill during a research session (UD photo).
Funded with grants from NIH and the American Heart Association, Farquhar and his colleagues at UD and the Mayo Clinic began physically investigating Dykes to find out how he’s managing to run this fast at his age. Their findings were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
One basic assessment from treadmill sessions is that Dykes has an abnormally high VO2 max, a measure of the facility with which the body processes oxygen during exercise. “Most people get to 75, 80, 85 percent of that physiological ceiling. He seems to be chugging along 90 percent the whole way,” Farquhar said. “He is able to get closer to and hold his max. Most people get closer and fatigue.”
Farquhar now has a good personal target goal for a couple decades down the road.
> Read full story
> For the technical stuff, see NEJM article
18 Monday Feb 2019
Posted in Kudos, News, Race Results, Stories
Sam Parsons, a professional runner from Newark, Del., and son of CRR Christina Parsons and CRR George Parsons, won the 3,000m indoor German National Championship in Leipzig on Saturday. Parsons, who has dual citizenship because of his German-born mother, made the decision last year to compete for her homeland.
The 25-year-old Parsons and another German-American runner, Amos Bartelsmeyer, finished 1-2 and were the only competitors to break eight minutes, Parsons clocking in at 7:53.71.
In a post-race interview, an ecstatic Parsons said, “It was amazing to compete here today. This is something special for me to start for the first time at the German Championships. The people here are so much cooler than in the U.S. The audience loves athletics. Now I am looking forward to running at the European Championships, and I hope to bring home a medal for Germany.”
He later posted, “I wanted to win so badly. I was willing to pour out whatever was necessary to win. It’s a moment I’ll cherish forever.”
A Tatnall School and North Carolina State University graduate, Parsons will be off to represent Germany in the European Championships on March 2–3 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Will he be ready? With two Creek Road Runners forming his direct bloodline, we bet he will be. “I’m not afraid of opponents,” he declared.
> See post-race video interview (in German)
> Also see Parsons breaks four-minute mile.
Editor’s Note: Parsons took 12th place in the Euro Championships on March 2.
03 Sunday Feb 2019
Posted in Race Results, Stories, Useful Info
Tags
10K, 5K, humor, injury, strickland
Figured we could start out the new year with a cautionary tale. The following first-person account was shared by CRR Rachel Strickland, whose foot, yes, still hurts after having run two shorter races in lieu of one longer one.
Probably not the best decision I have ever made, but…
…I had signed up to do the half marathon of the Best Damn Race in Safety Harbor, Fla., a race I had done seven years ago for its inaugural run. They have really fun medals.
My foot hurt so bad on my last training run the previous Sunday that I could only do five miles and had to walk a lot of that. The race organizers let me transfer to the 5K/10K Challenge. Still 9.3 miles, but I saved nearly four miles of pounding on my foot.
I did the 10K at 7 a.m. then the 5K at 9:00. I got a medal for each event and a third for having done the combo. It hurt every single step, so probably not the best decision (hence the meme about being in denial). This is the same injury that kept me from doing the Wring Out the Old [at the end of 2018], but it seemed like it had been getting better.
I like to practice medicine without a license and know a little about anatomy, but I’m seeing a podiatrist this week to find out what the problem is, and, hopefully, I’ll have a real diagnosis. Likely a long time away from running in order to rehab. Just as well, because cycling season is just around the corner, and I can start training (I have the bike hooked to a trainer in the basement) for the Monkey Knife Fight on April 6—a 30-mile hilly ride in Emmaus, Pa.
Oh well, you just can’t keep some runners down. But, as a general rule, we don’t recommend running injured. Stay healthy in 2019 everyone!
