Gate City Striders

The GCS-Triad Men’s Racing Team scored 11 points, on their way to finishing 2nd overall (out of 15) and slaying the aforementioned regional running goliaths.

While many of their teammates were doing battle in Amherst at the DH Jones 10 miler, a determined group of GCS-Triad runners who are both young and young at heart went up against teams from some of the best running clubs in New England and beat them. At the 2009 USATF New England Indoor Track and Field Championships held at Harvard University, on February 22nd, The GCS-Triad Men’s Racing Team scored 11 points, on their way to finishing 2nd overall (out of 15) and slaying the aforementioned regional running goliaths.

Captain Tom Kolb kicked things off with the first event of the day, the One Mile Run. Tom, or Mr. DFL as his good friends like to call him, got his money's worth on this race and finished the indoor mile in 5:56.16. All kidding aside, Tom is coming back from a serious illness which sidelined him for much of last season and it's good to see him on his feet and running again. Welcome back, Tom! Next up was the 800 Meter Run, where 5 GCS runners blanketed the finish line. Jarrod Redimon was first of the five across the line with a blistering 2:02.52 followed closely by: Connor Crowley, Corey Hahnl, Nick Muller & Conor Danis. After that, the GCS-Triad team took 2nd in the Distance Medley Relay in a time of 11:23.27. Later, Tom St. Cyr & Denis Arnold doubled in the Long Jump and 60 Meter Hurdles. With Tom getting the better of Denis in the jump (5.91m to 5.75m) and Denis returning the favor in the hurdles (8.62 to 9.19). Another “doubler” was Arthur von Marcsha who took 2nd in the hurdles (8.78) and 12th in the high jump (1.72m) behind teammate Jonathan Kilgore who finished 4th overall with a leap of 1.87m. Rounding out the Men’s team competition was 62 year-old Brad Johnson who took 6th in the Masters 800 Meter Run with a fine time of 2:38.5.

Coach Wright and the girls from the 4x200 team

On the Women’s side, Kelsey Hunt & Peggy Lai helped the cause with impressive finishes in the One Mile & 3000 Meter runs respectively. Kelsey’s mile time of 5:31.59 was good enough for 13th place overall and Peggy’s time of 11:14.61 in the 3k also gave her the lucky 13th spot. The GCS-Triad Women’s “A” & “B” Teams took 2nd and 3rd in the Distance Medley Relay which spurred the squad on to 6th place overall (out of 15) among the Women’s Teams competing on the day. Congrats to all who participated and helped to "bring home the hardware" for our club!

For additional information about this meet, please check out the Race Results page on our club website.

And, as an added bonus, here is a short video of some of the GCS team members filmed before meet. Enjoy!