Nice early season 1/2 Marathon

Last Sunday, Mercury Risers Sergio Del Piccolo and Jeremy Hopwood competed in Vancouver's "First Half" half marathon.

Sergio recently joined MRT, and works with Coach Rachel. Only 6 weeks back to steady training he was hoping to finish under 2 hours. He finished strong with an impressive 1:45:49. Congrats on a new PB Sergio!!!

Coach Clint is proud of Jeremy's 1:21:49, run on tired legs. Jeremy is now racing the clock until he joins Clint, Sergio and so many others in the world of Fatherdom.

Welcome Clara!

Clara Falkowski Vilchez was born at 7.20am on Valentine's Day. She is the third child and first daughter of Mercury Rising Team member and website designer, Carlos Vilchez. Congratulations to Carlos and wife Anna. All the best to you and your expanding family!!

Mercury Rising Women Own the Race!

143 ladies showed up to race the Calgary Hypothermic Half Marathon today. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 13th place in the women’s field ALL went to Mercury Rising athletes! Lorraine Churchill blazed her way to 2nd, with a pb time of 1:38, over 35 minutes faster than her previous official half marathon time. 3rd place went to Leanne Sherman, who had a breakthrough race, and a pb time of almost 4 minutes! Hot on Leanne’s tail (8 seconds to be exact) Patty Infusino took 3rd place, pb’ing at 1:42. And rounding out the streak of personal best times for the day, Marija Susnjar battled her way to a pb, finishing in 1:49, taking 13th place.

Congratulations, Ladies! Way to represent!!!!!

*Editor's Note: The results published were based on the 10:00am race wave. Unlike past years, this year an additional 1:00pm race wave was added to the race and those results were posted after this blog was written. Despite an extra 48 women's results being added to the combined list, the girls' overall placement only changed slightly, putting them in 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 21st out of 191 women.

Congratulations Michelle!!

Mercury Rising athlete and coach Michelle Milot (aka Rockstar) has been selected for the Team TBB Elite Development Squad! This means that she will be working with world-class coach Brett Sutton and his team for 2011.

Sara has been coaching Michelle for 4 years and can tell you that there is no one more worthy of this than her. Michelle has the attitude and work ethic of someone who can and will achieve her potential in this sport. As a coach there is no greater reward than seeing someone who was a complete beginner 4 years ago become a competitive athlete and an age group champion through hard work and dedication. Michelle's next goal is to make the leap to the elite side of the sport and we look forward to seeing her succeed!

Go Rockstar!!!