We would like to remember two of our Pilgrim friends, Chuck Jones and Clint Powell who have both recently lost their Fathers. We hope that through the sadness that they both find a way to remember the Happy thoughts of their Fathers. We hope they both will be running again with us soon and we want them to know they both are part of our Pilgrim Family!
Brenda said she had a good race, and felt she could of ran a little faster. If you look at her finish photo you would never have known she had just run a spectacular marathon. She came in 2nd place in her age group of 651 runners and placed 2086 overall, not bad for race of 33687 runners. Her finishing time of 3:16:11 age graded to 82.6 percentile. That classifies her as a national class runner, which we already knew about Brenda. There seems to be no stopping her. She spends her time coaching and when she isn't coaching she is on the roads putting in the mileage. If you are interested in putting some time with her on the roads you can find her at the Germantown High School Track.
In a very heated battle on both the men's and women's side the Pilgrimage Track Club battled valiantly to win for the 9th straight year in a row. On the men's side it was very close throughout the night. The first half of the race it was hit or miss trying to build a gap that would leave them comfortable to carry them through the night. In Pilgrimage fashion they relayed 2 miles at a time bringing the gap from 3 miles ahead of the Speedy Cats to 10 miles. By 5:00 AM they continued to pull ahead a half mile an hour. Then when it came down to 5 hours to go they felt comfortable enough to relax and just finish up strong. They outdistanced the second place team by 16 miles, breaking the overall men's record with a mileage of 209 miles.The women's team was brought together with great work by Padma Lyons and Maria Williams and missed the course record by only 3 miles!Thanks to all the Pilgrimage team members and they great competition from the Speedy Cats and Team Fleet Feet. Let's keep the competition coming for next year. The more teams that participate the more money the race will raise money for Haiti.Mark your calanders for next years race (the first weekend of October) as the Pilgrimage Team will go for a unheard of TEN YEAR STREAK!
Pilgrimage Track Club's own Michael Driver placed second at the Tupelo, MS Green Street Mile July 4th. He out-distanced the rest of the Pilgrims with a winning time of 4:50. All Pilgrimage runners placed well in the event taking a top 3 or better in their age group. Bradley Cordts ran well after coming back from heart problems less less than a year ago.