What Is Thursday Track?
The Thursday Track Crew is a group
of runners who suffer from the delusion that regular speed workouts will
help them run faster races, even though quite a few in the group are past
their prime. And, in fact, the workouts have helped a number of runners improve
their times and achieve their racing goals. But the Crew is not just for
runners with racing experience, or even runners who want to race. In fact,
it's as much a social thing as anything else.
The Crew began in the early 90s when charter members Marty Mazur, Mike Dooris,
Jim Myers, and others, decided they needed to do some regular speed work.
The Crew started going to the track, irregularly at first, then stuck to
Thursday. A regular meeting day, and the regular humorous email exhortations
of Marty Mazur (aka "Bwana") gained the group more adherents with time. The
group welcomes newcomers. One of the purported benefits of showing up regularly
is getting Bwana's wacky weekly track report, wherein he doles out gold stars
to the attendees and good-natured jibes to the laggards.
The group meets every Thursday in the warm up area behind the bleachers in
Rec Hall. They head out at about 12:10 for a leisurely jog down to the track
(a mile and a half each way). You can also meet them at the track by about
12:25. Most of the year, the group runs at the Penn State outdoor track.
During the bad weather months, the Crew heads to the Multi-Sport Facility/Horace
Ashenfelter III indoor track, next to the outdoor track. At the track, the
group does a varied workout adding up to about two more miles of hard running.
They usually have fifteen to thirty runners of varying ages and abilities
show up on any given week. The more people who show up, the more likely you'll
find one or more runners who run your pace, or who can challenge you to go
a bit faster. It's a great social time. You'll start racing faster.
NOTE:
The group is VERY regular. We met every Thursday, except Thanksgiving, and
have been known to run even when the University is closed for bad weather.
If the weather is bad, we now have the option of using the MSF Indoor Track
Facility. In this case, if it's wet out, please bring an extra pair of dry
track shoes. If the weather is too treacherous to even run to the indoor
track, we work out on the Rec Hall track.
Back to the Thursday Track Crew Page
Back to NVRC home page