Unveiling
Watch the race highlights here
Last night's Zilker Relays was the debut of the newly formed post-collegiate team put together by Rogue founder Steve Sisson. The Team’s goal for the evening was to showcase their talents in front of an Austin running crowd. Under threatening skies, blasting winds & occasional downpours the Friday evening race was a challenge for all the teams. Team Rogue Elite's men’s team consisted of four former UT men’s athletes. The lead off leg was run by Joe Thorne, who is currently preparing for his first Hawaii Ironman race in October. Joe ran a tough race bursting through the first mile at a very aggressive pace. His stated goal was to go hard from the gun and gauge how he felt from there. Since he has been concentrating on swim, bike & run for a year he really had not run a lot of runs under 5 minute pace. He ran is first mile was sub-4:30, as he averaged 4:40 per mile producing the fastest 2.5 mile split of the evening in an 11:22.
Leg 2 was run by Kyle Miller, who is just getting started back to training the last month. Kyle had a strong run and averaged 4:56 per mile running just over 12 minutes. He handed off to Darren Brown who has been on a break after his summer in Europe racing 1500 meters. Darren & his dad Barry Brown are the only father/son duo to break the 4 minute mile barrier. Brown ran 11:47 or 4:50 per mile pace. Final leg for the team was run by Erik “Stan” Stanley. Stan ran the 2nd fastest split of the evening in 11:35 at 4:45 per mile pace. Stan has been training with Team Rogue and Sisson all summer for his first road marathon in Portland on October 4th. Erik is also very interested in trail events and will be running the Bandera 50K in January.
Team Rogue women also had the fastest overall time of the day in 7:02. The women’s team has been racing for Rogue for at least 5 years. The team had a new team member this year in lead off leg of Allison Macsas. Allison works in the Rogue office & is a post-collegiate runner. Allison ran the first leg is in 5:43 pace breaking 14 minutes with a 13:57. I believe she had the fastest female split of the evening. 2nd leg was run by one of Austin’s favorite runners, Carmen Troncoso. Carmen ran at a 14:12 at 5:49 pace. We always say it but if any of us can run that pace at 50 we will be lucky. 3rd leg of the women’s team was run by Shannon Presely. Shannon a former pro-soccer player is a very talented runner who as been training with Carmen for several years. She is really gotten fast. Shannon ran her leg in 14:44 or 6:02 pace. Another Austin favorite runner ran the final leg of the team, was Cassandra Henkiel. Cassie was a Olympic trials qualifier 2 years ago in the Marathon. Cassie has won many of the local running events in town including the Capitol 10,000 more than one time.
Congrats Team Rogue Elite!
