In photo below, the fast heat of the mile leans boldly towards take off.

Every year the summer begins and ends with the Frederick Steeplechasers taking to the track. As the name implies, the series consists of ten races on consecutive weeks. The distances include 200M, 400M, and 600M for the blazing speed, 800M, 1000M, and 1500M for the middle distance, and round out with 1600M, 1 Mile, 3200M, and 2 Mile for the slower twitch fibers.

The races are run each Wednesday for ten weeks. The cool thing is that they are age-graded. Sometimes it is better to be older. The runners get points based on 100 points for the last finisher with each runner in front of him getting 100 more points up to the fastest age-graded time getting 100 points times the total number of runners. There are often ties because of the age-grading. In that case, the runners split evenly the points. The races are cumulative, so the more races you finish, the higher your score gets.

The Markley family is jammed with fast twitch fibers. Brian (21) led all the runners in each race, though his dad, Tony (52), out pointed him in the 200M and the 400M. In photo left, Brian Markley glides home with a big lead in 4:39. FSC President Paul Spurrier (28) as an open runner got no help from the age-grading but his blazing speed landed him in second place even though he only ran the first nine races. Tony Markley was third. The next six men's places were decided the final day. Four men ran all ten races.

For the women, often the age-graded times had four runners finishing within a second. Mary Zielinksi (40) was the only woman to run all ten races. Zielinski [In photo left] is pretty new to racing hard. Tenacious running is what it took for her to win the decathlon this year. Felicia Gudat (36) was only a short 150 points back. She had missed only one race, which likely would have netted her the title. The oldest competitor, Leslie Nuse (60) was in sixth place even running only four of the ten races.

After the weekly main event, there is a relay race. Usually the teams are picked by lining up the runners by finishing time and counting off. This insures a level playing field. Not to worry, one of the ten separate race directors has brought enough good food prizes so that all the runners get something, albeit the winning team gets the first choice.

All the relays are different, often with random distances. Sometimes playing cards for finished laps provide the win. Some runners skip the main event and just run the relay such as the gut buster where 4 team mates each have to run 400M ten times.

Many of the steeplechasers teach school and the atmosphere surrounding the relay combinations divined by stats man Tim O'Keefe (right) is very educational. O'Keefe, a former club president is a mainstay for the series. Joe Tiso (left) came to report for the newsletter.

All ten individual races and the weekly cumulative totals can be found at Results

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