Details

Written by Bwana Bwana

April 24, 2014

This year’s Boston Marathon was one for the ages. The Boston Strong marathon, with an American man winning for the first time in over 30 years, and American women running PR times. The NVRC sent a great team, and they acquitted themselves quite well, from Tom Cali’s 28th place age group run, to Josh Cone’s post run interview that lit up the Boston Globe web site. It was only natural that the NVRC team members, whose feet were still in the air, would have a hard time coming down to earth. But Tom Cali and Andy Maguire of the Marathoners For Medicine team came to the track along with, Mike Zimmerman, Judd Michael, Lance Bland, Ken Davis, Bob Cornwall, Greg Dillon (!), Mike Martin, Costas Maranas, Mark Fedkin, Mike Casper, John and Jake Iceland, Dana Todd, Jon Thurley, Rich Harter, David Lloyd, and Marty Mazur. It was a beautiful day, cool and sunny, with no impeding winds.

John Iceland brought his son Jake for “Take Your Child To Work Day”, apparently under the theory of "soup to nuts”. Jake is in 6th grade and has already wet his whistle on some local 5Ks. Bwana decided to give a workout that would be fun for Jake and hell for all the relative geezers: Mad Minutes. Five one-minute sets, each minute consisting of 30 seconds slow jog, 20 seconds of our usual workout pace (5K+ to mile race pace) and 10 seconds of something we almost never do: all out, arms and legs pumping, gasket-popping *sprint*! Take a rest between sets and do 3 or 4 sets. This workout seems so easy for the first rep of each set, but quickly catches up with you. The trick is to let it catch up with you (that means run the 20 seconds and 10 second sections  pretty hard), but still manage to stay ahead. 

Not everyone could do this workout. Cali and Maguire could only walk down stairs as of yesterday after their marathon triumphs. Greg Dillon, Wookie Emeritus, came as a visitor, and a man on the mend, to jog a few laps with the Crew. And Bwana was letting his dragging hamstring take a break from anything ‘sprinty’. Some couldn’t even be bothered to come to the track. John Wilcock and Mark Lee were seen jogging near campus, but nowhere near the track. But it was a day off, so Bwana is in a lenient mood. He hopes to see a big turnout next week when more of our Boston laureates will make their triumphant return.