January 27, 2011
Half a dozen Boulder Wave athletes, including five based in Colorado, will be in action this weekend at competitions around the world.
Friday night in Madison Square Garden, University of Colorado grad Sara Vaughn steps back to the big time by racing in the women’s 1500m at the 104th Millrose Games. In 2009, Sara had a tremendous breakthrough season, chopping eight seconds from her PB’s for both 800m (2:03.76) and 1500m (4:11.39). Away for maternity leave in 2010 for the June birth of her and husband Brent’s second daughter (Calia), Sara has steadily been returning to fitness under the guidance of Coach Jay Johnson. After a rust-busting mile on CU’s indoor track last Saturday, at MSG Sara will be looking to clear her qualifying mark for this year’s US Indoor Championships.
On Saturday, Josh Moen (Mizuno/Team USA Minnesota), Boulder’s Patrick Rizzo (Mizuno), and 2010 CU graduate Kenyon Neuman will compete at the US Men’s Half-Marathon Championship in Houston. Josh will be focusing on the entire USARC championship circuit this year, and will be looking to better the 62:53 PB he ran in Houston last winter when placing 6th. Patrick Rizzo is coming off a year full of PB’s, and tuned up for Houston by running 2nd at the Fast and Flurryous Cross-Country race in Boulder two weekends ago. And Kenyon Neuman of Boulder has been training with a group of studs under Jay Johnson’s lead, and will be making his debut at the distance. Justin Young and Antonio Vega (Mizuno) have both withdrawn from Houston with winter injuries, but Antonio will be on hand to do some promo work for his sponsor, Mizuno USA, as well as make appearances on behalf of the championships.
First up on Sunday will be the 30th anniversary running of the Osaka International Women’s Marathon. Women represented or assisted by Boulder Wave have won the race or been Top Three numerous times in the past 17 years. This time around, Adriana Pirtea (ASICS) of Fort Collins, CO, and Romania is on hand. Adriana comes off a strong autumn where she finished 6th at the ‘real Berlin Marathon and won several shorter races, including the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon. Adriana did a three-week stint at altitude in Toluca, Mexico, to help prepare for Osaka, and will be going after her PB (2:28:52) and a top three finish. Forecast for Sunday here in Osaka is snow and 34 degrees (2 Celsius). On Osaka’s invited athlete list there are also a half-dozen Japanese women who trained in Boulder in 2010.
And wrapping up the weekend’s racing will be local Boulder resident Fiona Docherty (ASICS) of New Zealand, who will be racing the ING Miami Half-Marathon on Sunday. Fiona also is coming off a banner year in which she chopped her marathon PB by eight minutes to 2:32:17 at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Fee’s road to the 2012 London Olympic Games will continue on April 17th when she races in the Virgin London Marathon.
For further details, please contact Brendan Reilly at brendan@boulderwave.com
