Mile

Christina and Nada were paced to new PRs by Jalil and Allan while Julia was in the middle of a strong male group. Congratulations to all three of them !

Thank you to Matthew who showed us how to properly warm up before a race. Stephen had liked his farewell run two weeks ago so much that he showed up for another one today before leaving to Brussels. "Charlie" Chayama joined the IAEA again and did his first run with us after more than 10 years - welcome back !

Due to injuries and other committments, some teams had to be re-composed a little right before the start.
Weather was terrific, maybe a little bit too hot, and for the upcoming 10k on Thursday we could do with a few centigrades less.
For the first time, a nordic walker team took part.

Matthew missed his own VIC record by only one second. He is reveiling (part of) his secrets to all those who join in the VICRunners' weekly track training.

Today's race was part of Matthew's interval training - he repeated the mile afterwards twice in approx. the same time or even a little faster.
PRs for the Chrises only.
Wilma has not missed a VICRunners event since last year's July triathlon.

The old saying "they never come back" certainly does not apply for the VICRunners - Peter Grimsditch (former UNOV and IAEA staff member) is here on a visit from Geneva and joined us again after almost 9 years.
Welcome to Nicole, Wasan and Chris who took part for the first time today and hopefully are not discouraged - the mile distance is very demanding and not easy to start with.
Congratulations to Julia for rank number 5 in the mile top 100 and to Alain for his only PR !

In today's historic mile race, we saw a VR (VIC record for staff members) by newcomer Matthew, a CR (course record = best time including those of guests) by Beate and many PRs (personal records). The previous VR for men (4:46) was held by Christian CHABERT for almost 20 years, CR is 4:31 run by Hasan TARIQ in 1986. The previous best for ladies (5:53) set up by Liz ROEHRIG had held for more than 15 years.

The number of PRs achieved shows that all team members and guests were fighting hard in this first part of the 3rd VIC Games. Quite a number of improvements in the top 100, Beate missed Liz's record by two seconds.
A close finish is to be expected for gold between IAEA and CTBTO in the men's competition. Ladies: everything is still possible.

For today's mile run, timers were recruited in Donaupark 5 minutes before the race, and they did a great job - thank you to Olena, Ferdinand and Robert ! During the race the friendly garden ladies watched our equipment bag and jackets. Very close finish in the race: the first four runners within 4 seconds.

In contrast to last week nobody needed woolen cap or gloves today. We had 20 degrees, perfect for the mile.