Skunk Cabbage 1/2 Marathon and 10K, April 1, 2007

Several of the Gophers ran the annual Skunk Cabbage Race this year. Steve Codner, Steve Gallow, Nancy Jacoby, and Ray Wagner all ran the 1/2 marathon. Gideon Gal and David Jung ran the 10k.

As was typical fashion for the Skunk Cabbage, the weather was quite cold and windy. The good news was the wind was coming out of the South East, which put it at the runners backs when on the second part of the course.

Steve Codner wanted to take it easy on the 1/2 , and he still finished several minutes before any of the other gophers. He's in great shape! Codner finished with a 1:43:52. Steve Gallow has been having some problems with his right hamstring, and he started conservatively. He was feeling very good and picked it up at the 10 mile mark to finish strong with his own personal PR for the course a 1:49:01. Ray Wagner is also viewed the race as a training run for the Green Mountain Relay. He still finished very strong with a 1:55:58.

Nancy Jacoby has he own story to tell. She met the Gophers recently. One day she hopes to
join us for some runs. She did very well and here is her story:

"My goal was to finish in 2 hours, and I did: 1:59:48! Considering that
I've only done two 10-mile runs since I started getting back into shape
after an injury (slipped on ice, fell onto a bent knee, and suffered a
concussion during a marathon training run in Feb 2005 and it ended up
knocking me out of any real training for almost a year), I was very
pleased.

I started out very conservatively and then made a conscious shift to pick
up the pace about mile 7. My last 2-3 miles were clipping right a long. I
love that feeling of a negative split!"

Congratulations Nancy on a fantastic job.

In the 10k David Jung and Gideon Gal battled it out. Part way into the race Gideon lost his timing chip, and had to stop and pick it up. David used this advantage to come in 8 seconds before Gideon. The both broke the 7 min/mile average. David had a 42:44 and Gideon had a 42:52. They both did very well.

Great Job to all the gophers. The next big race for many of us will be the Mountain Goat 10 mile race in Syracuse in May. We should be in great shape for that race for some more PR's.