Brandon Running Association Monthly Meeting Notes: February 17, 2009
Recent Race Results: (and all of our results at this Athlinks Link!)
Stacy Shimkovitz Race for Kids 10K 53:57
Veronica Harding Sarasota ½ Marathon 2:23:26 PR
Jan Burger Sarasota ½ Marathon 1:30:51 1st 40-44
Rebecca Boudreaux Disney Marathon 4:21:34 1st marathon
Beth Shaw Sarasota ½ Marathon 2:09:22
Frank Proch Kumquat 5K FINISHED!
Don & Carolyn Roberts VOLUNTEERS!!
Elton Kostecka - 2 new members tonight: Ryan and Sean. Introduced guest speaker: Susan
Harmeling of Gasparilla Distance Classic Association
Susan Harmeling
Unprecedented registrations created some problems because they were only planning for a certain
number of people, but it is a good thing, and they feel that they can handle it well. They are not sure
why they have more runners this year – possibly because it is later in the season. There are 1,200
runners registered for the kids race alone this coming weekend. Some new things for this year:
Ryan Hall will be running the 15K! He is using this for Boston training and will be trying to break the
American record of 42:23. Ryan will essentially be running alone with his own lead vehicle and the
rest of the racers will have another lead vehicle. Another high profile person at the races this year is
Charlie Engle. He is an ultra-marathoner who has run the Sahara desert. He is coming to Tampa to
run the marathon and will start the marathon at 2:00am, run it backwards, and then run it again with
everyone else starting at 6:00am.
There are 800 kids participating in Let Me Play program. This program is sponsored by Nike and gets
kids involved in running events. Sara Reinersten will also be here with the Challenged Athletes
Foundation. Nike will have a larger presence at the Expo. The Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and
marathon relay are all sold out! They only allocate a certain number of runners for each of these
events, and this is the first year that they have sold out. Susan demonstrated the new timing tag and
reiterated that it does not need to be scanned at the expo. She also mentioned that the tag is not
easily moveable. So, for those athletes competing in either one of the challenges and wear different
shoes for different distances, you will need to staple the tag together after the initial use.
Someone asked if the runners will be traceable online. She answered that this is not currently in their
budget, but that they are working on it for future events.
This is Don Clark’s 29th consecutive Gasparilla!!
As a final thing, Susan reminded us that she gives out shirts to people in the audience who are
wearing old Gasparilla shirts. Remember this for the next time that she attends a meeting.
Elton Kostecka: Recap of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day race.
January 20, 2009
Name Race Time Comments
Steve Swift Miami Half Ironman Tri 5:14:01 84th / 700+
Matthew Mancuso Marine Corps Marathon 3:10:28 349th place
Matthew Mancuso Disney Marathon 3:35:19 pacing
Henry Pietal Disney Marathon 3:35:19 Boston Qualified
Craig Osburn Disney Marathon 3:23 Boston Qualified
Beth Shaw Disney Marathon 5:17
Tina Czech Disney Marathon
Rebecca Boudeaux Disney Marathon
John Milsaps FishHawk 5K 27:25
Jan Burger Times Turkey Trot 10K 41:01 2nd Master
Laura Ghilik-Milu Brandon Half Marathon 1:54:32
Holly Logan FishHawk 10K 53:27
Steve Swift FishHawk 10K 42:38
Patricia Rossie-King Brandon Half Marathon 2:04
Patricia Rossie-King FishHawk 10K 54:49 PR
Frank Proch Disney Half Marathon Finished with daughter and son-in-law.
Elton Kostecka Blizzard Run 5K 19:44
Elton Kostecka FishHawk 5K 19:51
Bill McKnight - For the Brandon Half Marathon, we were able to donate $30,000 to MDA. This was a
little short of our goal, but a couple of sponsors fell short. Half Marathon had 353 registered, 331
finishers. 5K had 171 finishers. Compared to 2007 race, we were up by about 100 runners. $2,000
of the profits go directly to BRA to fund meetings, Christmas party, etc. Currently, we have $6,895.38
in club treasury. There were some comments regarding MDA walkers in that they were finishing their
walk at the same time as the half marathoners, and it created some gridlock. This should not be a
problem in the future because they should be starting an hour earlier (this year they showed up an
hour late). The club is also thinking about changing the start time of the 5k to 7:30 (currently starts at
8:00). Will be additional planning meetings next year for these races. Not all can be accomplished at
the monthly BRA meetings. We would still like to increase the overall numbers for next year.
Elton Kostecka - FishHawk road race was last weekend. BRA had 17 of our members running. We
also had several runners at the Disney Marathon the previous weekend. Don and Carolyn were
volunteering at Disney. Disney uses about 5,000 volunteers to put on their race. Don and Carolyn ran
the race in the inaugural year of 1994, and have volunteered there every year since then. We were
asked by Gasparilla to fill slots at Sports Authority for the weekends of January 24-25 and January 31-
February 1. All the slots have been filled.
Guest Speaker Shari Palasti - Shari was here to talk to us about their product, The Joey Pouch.
Visit www.thejoeypouch.com for more information.
St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Race - We already have a few volunteers, but we do not have a race
director yet. Tom Mistrot volunteered to assist the director so that he can do it next year. Glen Todd
graciously volunteered to be the race directory. Everyone else was asked to keep their same jobs
from last year. The race is scheduled for Sunday, March 15, 2009.
Other Business:
* Do we want BRA shirts? The consensus was yes.
* Applications and dues for 2009 due tonight.
* We want to keep growing the Club.
* It should be mentioned that BRA has 4 certified running coaches among our members to help
others to meet their goals. We also have Laura Ghilik-Milu who has a nutrition based business and is
a swim coach.
* One final request was that for BRA runners who are running in any of our BRA events, to please
hang around afterwards and help with clean-up
Recent Race Results: (and all of our results at this Athlinks Link!)
Stacy Shimkovitz Race for Kids 10K 53:57
Veronica Harding Sarasota ½ Marathon 2:23:26 PR
Jan Burger Sarasota ½ Marathon 1:30:51 1st 40-44
Rebecca Boudreaux Disney Marathon 4:21:34 1st marathon
Beth Shaw Sarasota ½ Marathon 2:09:22
Frank Proch Kumquat 5K FINISHED!
Don & Carolyn Roberts VOLUNTEERS!!
Elton Kostecka - 2 new members tonight: Ryan and Sean. Introduced guest speaker: Susan
Harmeling of Gasparilla Distance Classic Association
Susan Harmeling
Unprecedented registrations created some problems because they were only planning for a certain
number of people, but it is a good thing, and they feel that they can handle it well. They are not sure
why they have more runners this year – possibly because it is later in the season. There are 1,200
runners registered for the kids race alone this coming weekend. Some new things for this year:
Ryan Hall will be running the 15K! He is using this for Boston training and will be trying to break the
American record of 42:23. Ryan will essentially be running alone with his own lead vehicle and the
rest of the racers will have another lead vehicle. Another high profile person at the races this year is
Charlie Engle. He is an ultra-marathoner who has run the Sahara desert. He is coming to Tampa to
run the marathon and will start the marathon at 2:00am, run it backwards, and then run it again with
everyone else starting at 6:00am.
There are 800 kids participating in Let Me Play program. This program is sponsored by Nike and gets
kids involved in running events. Sara Reinersten will also be here with the Challenged Athletes
Foundation. Nike will have a larger presence at the Expo. The Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and
marathon relay are all sold out! They only allocate a certain number of runners for each of these
events, and this is the first year that they have sold out. Susan demonstrated the new timing tag and
reiterated that it does not need to be scanned at the expo. She also mentioned that the tag is not
easily moveable. So, for those athletes competing in either one of the challenges and wear different
shoes for different distances, you will need to staple the tag together after the initial use.
Someone asked if the runners will be traceable online. She answered that this is not currently in their
budget, but that they are working on it for future events.
This is Don Clark’s 29th consecutive Gasparilla!!
As a final thing, Susan reminded us that she gives out shirts to people in the audience who are
wearing old Gasparilla shirts. Remember this for the next time that she attends a meeting.
Elton Kostecka: Recap of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day race.
January 20, 2009
Name Race Time Comments
Steve Swift Miami Half Ironman Tri 5:14:01 84th / 700+
Matthew Mancuso Marine Corps Marathon 3:10:28 349th place
Matthew Mancuso Disney Marathon 3:35:19 pacing
Henry Pietal Disney Marathon 3:35:19 Boston Qualified
Craig Osburn Disney Marathon 3:23 Boston Qualified
Beth Shaw Disney Marathon 5:17
Tina Czech Disney Marathon
Rebecca Boudeaux Disney Marathon
John Milsaps FishHawk 5K 27:25
Jan Burger Times Turkey Trot 10K 41:01 2nd Master
Laura Ghilik-Milu Brandon Half Marathon 1:54:32
Holly Logan FishHawk 10K 53:27
Steve Swift FishHawk 10K 42:38
Patricia Rossie-King Brandon Half Marathon 2:04
Patricia Rossie-King FishHawk 10K 54:49 PR
Frank Proch Disney Half Marathon Finished with daughter and son-in-law.
Elton Kostecka Blizzard Run 5K 19:44
Elton Kostecka FishHawk 5K 19:51
Bill McKnight - For the Brandon Half Marathon, we were able to donate $30,000 to MDA. This was a
little short of our goal, but a couple of sponsors fell short. Half Marathon had 353 registered, 331
finishers. 5K had 171 finishers. Compared to 2007 race, we were up by about 100 runners. $2,000
of the profits go directly to BRA to fund meetings, Christmas party, etc. Currently, we have $6,895.38
in club treasury. There were some comments regarding MDA walkers in that they were finishing their
walk at the same time as the half marathoners, and it created some gridlock. This should not be a
problem in the future because they should be starting an hour earlier (this year they showed up an
hour late). The club is also thinking about changing the start time of the 5k to 7:30 (currently starts at
8:00). Will be additional planning meetings next year for these races. Not all can be accomplished at
the monthly BRA meetings. We would still like to increase the overall numbers for next year.
Elton Kostecka - FishHawk road race was last weekend. BRA had 17 of our members running. We
also had several runners at the Disney Marathon the previous weekend. Don and Carolyn were
volunteering at Disney. Disney uses about 5,000 volunteers to put on their race. Don and Carolyn ran
the race in the inaugural year of 1994, and have volunteered there every year since then. We were
asked by Gasparilla to fill slots at Sports Authority for the weekends of January 24-25 and January 31-
February 1. All the slots have been filled.
Guest Speaker Shari Palasti - Shari was here to talk to us about their product, The Joey Pouch.
Visit www.thejoeypouch.com for more information.
St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Race - We already have a few volunteers, but we do not have a race
director yet. Tom Mistrot volunteered to assist the director so that he can do it next year. Glen Todd
graciously volunteered to be the race directory. Everyone else was asked to keep their same jobs
from last year. The race is scheduled for Sunday, March 15, 2009.
Other Business:
* Do we want BRA shirts? The consensus was yes.
* Applications and dues for 2009 due tonight.
* We want to keep growing the Club.
* It should be mentioned that BRA has 4 certified running coaches among our members to help
others to meet their goals. We also have Laura Ghilik-Milu who has a nutrition based business and is
a swim coach.
* One final request was that for BRA runners who are running in any of our BRA events, to please
hang around afterwards and help with clean-up
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