Strong Inaugural Weekend of Competition for Thursday Cruise Crew
The esteemed SF-based Thursday Cruise Crew running club had its first official competition yesterday, with entrants in the 2021 Portland Marathon and Half Marathon. Despite a mixed level of pre-conceived investment in the race, all four TCC athletes competed well, and have set a strong opening bar for the team to measure up to for the rest of the season.
The club was unofficially founded in the Spring of 2021, and has amassed a strong collection of post-collegiate runners. Experts in distances from the 800 meters to the marathon form the regular training group, with the diverse skill sets and experience levels bringing a great deal of value to all the members. The four who competed this week were among the longest-tenured members of the club, and it was clear that they wore that badge with pride (although invisibly).
With large city races largely on hold for the pandemic, this was to be the first major road race for all four of the TCC athletes in over 18 months. Melissa Frick was the lone TCC entrant in the full marathon distance, and she was looking forward to chasing a new PR in her 5th attempt at the always-challenging race. Sam Parker was returning to the half marathon for the first time since March 2016, when he was still leaning heavily on his collegiate training base from 9 months prior. Danielle Katz and Tom Coyle were debutants to the half marathon distance, and were looking forward to deploying their substantial talents on the roads.
The course was new to all four contestants, but strong signage from the race organizers ensured that was not a particular hurdle. The half marathon course began in downtown Portland and headed south along the river with some gradual ramping elevation changes for four miles before turning left to cross a bridge to the east side of the city. That was followed by five mostly-flat miles through neighborhood streets, before the first of two sharp climbs just past the 9 mile marker. The half marathoners then had one more climb, with 2k to go, up to and across a bridge back to the West side of the river, before a downward ramp off the bridge and then a straight final kilometer into the finish. The marathon course used nearly the entire half marathon course as well, but began with an additional tour of the Northwest of the city, and included an extra 5 miles around Reed College in the Southeast of the city. Overall, the additional twistiness of those sections made the marathon course slightly more challenging than the half, but both were generally quite manageable.
The weather on race day was certainly to the runners' advantage. It was a cool, clear 57 degrees at race start, with the temperature rising slowly to about 64 degrees by the conclusion of the half marathon, and 70 degrees for the full. There was no wind to speak of.
The races started simultaneously at 7:10am, in the transition between dawn and morning. Two men quickly jumped to the front of the half marathon field, and took the steady upward first mile out in 5:00 pace. Coyle was quickly in a chase pack with two other men, a few seconds back. Parker got out well in the first hundred meters before wisely reining it in, and settling into sixth place. As Coyle began to pull away from him, he did yell a helpful "Go get 'em, Tom!", to which Tom vaguely waved in response without turning around. Katz also started well, settling into her goal pace of 6:20's.
Coyle, being appropriately cautious given his lack of certainty on his fitness level, was calm through the midway point. When he reached the 6.5 mile marker and was still feeling very comfortable, he began to crank up the effort, and by mile 10, he was showing his effort with a full "Coyle face". That effort was rewarded, as he ran a very impressive back half of the race, chasing down one of the two men in front of him and closing the final 5k at 4:55 pace to finish in 1:08:42, good for second place overall.
Parker had a stated goal of being cautious in the opening miles, and not coming through the 5-mile mark in less than 30 minutes. Naturally, when the lead woman passed him at 3 miles, he threw out that plan, and settled in with her and one other man, and they came through 5 miles in 29:05. Feeling stronger than expected, he continued to maintain 5:50 pace for the next six miles, pulling away from that pack and passing one other runner. Buoyed by a timely piece of encouragement from Friend of the Club Luke Hurst, he moved well up the final climb of the course to hit the 12-mile mark well under his goal time. From there, he used his typical aggressive downhill running style to cover the final 2k in 5:15 pace, closing a large gap on the only runner in his sights and passing him with 200 meters to go, and earning a sixth place finish in 1:15:33.
Katz showed her trademark composure throughout the race, latching onto other runners when appropriate, and moving away from those who were fading off her preferred pace. One male runner in particular seemed focused on changing his pace every couple hundred meters, and yo-yo'd with Katz for upwards of 4 miles before fading away. Although she had not raced at this distance before, she managed to recover well from a slower period around the 9 mile mark, and returned to her regularly scheduled rhythm through the final stages. Smiling for the cameras, she crossed the line in 1:22:25, as the fourth-placed woman and 26th runner overall.
Frick was the TCC's lone entrant in the marathon, but if she was miffed by the lack teammates being courageous enough to join her, it didn't show. She did make the unconventional choice to bear the extra weight of headphones on the course, believing that the benefits of staying entertained by music (and podcasts?) outweighed the distraction from the competition at hand. She cruised through the first half of the course, hitting the halfway mark in 1:34, on schedule for a PR. At the 21 mile mark, her headphones died, but rather than panicking, she moved them to her hand and managed to not drop them for the remainder of the race. She crossed the line in 3:08:26, good for 73rd overall in a competitive field in running-mad Portland, and the #7 woman on the day over the full distance.
Katz and Frick will now turn their attention towards the remainder of the fall cross country season. Coyle is signed up for the extremely competitive California International Marathon in December, where he will aim to break Frick's new club record for 26.2 miles. Parker's next race is his annual mile on Thanksgiving morning, so he will likely maintain his low mileage while adding some more speed work. There are also unconfirmed rumors of a much shorter match race between Coyle and Parker on the track, so we will see if that comes to fruition as well.
The TCC would like to thank its numerous sponsors for their support that made this weekend possible. Anyone interested in partnering with the TCC for future race weekends, retreats or team outings is welcome to reach out to danielle.rose.katz@gmail.com.