USATF Team Results After O'Garas

O'Gara's Irish Run 8K was the first of many races in the USA Track and Field Minnesota (USATF MN) series for 2017. My team JUST scraped together a full men's "open" team, men's "masters" team, and women's "masters" team. ("Masters is 40+, so I'll be there soon. Gulp.)

They don't have "divisional" results up yet (there's a "red" and "blue" division; we're in the "lesser" blue division), but the overall team results are up. Out of 11 open men's teams, we're sitting solidly in last place:

Note that we're REALLY back there in last place - had I "raced," it wouldn't have earned us a better result. Oh, and note that my time is 6 seconds slower than my official time listed in my race report - USATF scoring is always based on the "gun" time, not the "chip" time. So it's all about racing back to the finish line, not about if someone started 10 seconds in front of you or behind you. Debate this if you feel like it, but it's the fairest way to do it. (I believe. And USATF believes that too.)

Our 3 guys over 40 did better in the "masters" results. They were 9th out of 11:

It only takes 3 masters to score.

And our women's masters team did well too: they placed 6th out of 8:

Sure, my open men's team was last place, but we scored points. There are usually more than 11 teams by the end of the year (last year, there were 17), so if more teams join the circuit, we already have more points than them just because we showed up to the first race. (Oh, and we scored with 5 guys, which is the minimum to score. The top 2 scoring teams are both AMAZING teams, and they had 29 and 46 runners racing for their teams at this race! Wow!)

I won't be racing the 2nd race in the series, but hopefully I'll be back for the 3rd in May.

Here's my O'Gara's Irish Run 8K RACE REPORT from Monday if you missed it.