Marie-Louise Michelsohn takes 2 minutes off W65 10K record
Marie-Louise ran at Spokane nationals.
|
Marie-Louise Michelsohn says conditions were chilly, “about 50 degrees (with a) scotch mist,” but had no problem demolishing the listed W65 American record in the track 10,000 yesterday. She clocked 44:47.58 at the USATF Pacific Association Open Championships at College of San Mateo, south of San Francisco. “The old record was 47:09.40 (by Masters Hall of Famer Toshiko d’Elia in 1995),” Marie-Louise says. “It wasn’t quite as fast as the 43:06 I ran two years ago but didn’t get credit for since the photofinish tape was taped over before a picture was printed. But it was sweet to run a record in the second half of my age-group. I was 67 1/2 on April 8.” She had two male runners in the race, she reports. “I was really concentrating on this race. Everybody at the race knew I was running at record pace and aiming for the record. The announcer was very helpful. He announced my splits and my lap times on the mike. It really helped me know right where I was. And he asked the crowd to cheer and help me in in my last two laps. It was great support. The paperwork is indeed all in order. Everyone was very professional. I have two copies of the finish photo. Someone took me around to get all the signatures. It was a wonderful experience.”
Marie also wants to expand on her coaches.
She writes:
Ed Gonera did coach me for six or seven weeks at the height of last year’s
indoor track season and he was of enormous help — running with me and
teaching me a lot. But Ed Small has been coaching me for years — first
at the Armory, with Sharon Warren — and then by phone from North
Carolina. He even set up my program for the 400 for last year’s indoor
season, starting in October.Ed Gonera worked with me in February and
March. Ed Small has been a great coach as well as a very dear friend.
Before I trained with Ed Small, I trained with Pete Squires for
distance. Pete is a great coach and was a great distance runner back in
the day. He got cheated out of being in the Olympics in steeplechase and
marathon by the Carter boycott.Pete still helps me out now and then by
telling me what workout to do at some specific tricky times. He told
me what to do for an important workout in prep for this 10,000m. I am
very grateful to both Ed Small and Pete Squires.
Marie-Louise says she’ll race at the USATF Metropolitan Association meet in New York and at the Oshkosh nationals in July. In her 10K yesterday, she averaged 7:12 a mile, and her age-graded time was worth 30:31.6.
The W65 world record is 42:07.1 by Australia’s Theresia Baird in 2007.
Great run, Marie-Louise. Hope your times continue to warm up.
4 Responses
Big congratulations to M40 Nick White who took an overall 4th in the hammer throw to top his national age group with a 50.63m toss. This is Nick’s first season of competition since a layoff of many years, and he is on a tear.
Results from this meet are now posted here:
http://www.pausatf.org/data/2009/tf09pachampsresults.html
Fantastic run by Marie-Louise, just fabulous. Wish I had been there. But Ken, I must point out something to you (as a former distance runner). I would consider 50 degrees to be almost perfect for 10,000 meters (6.2137 miles). Is not a temperature of 45 to 50 degrees considered to be optimal for a marathon (26.21875 miles)?
This is not sprinting, Ken, where you want it to be warm — it’s distance running. I hate to be picky, but it’s begun to bother me a bit that you continue to criticize near-optimal conditions as adverse, as you do here. Marie-Louise ran for more than 44 minutes in this race — you need constant cooling in such an event.
I was there!
Leave a Reply