Bridget Franek's State meet - whaddaya think?

is she going to run NON or any of the post-season meets? i\'d like to see her roll against hasay, st. geme and tauro.

(she\'s run 10:15 or so for 3200 this year, so the 10:53 isn\'t that special.)

No, 10:53 isn't all by itself. 10 minutes after an 800m PR, maybe more so. Or am I making too much of this?

That was a heck of a day for Bridget, and I'm glad I was there to watch it. I was hoping Sarah Foster would try to go out and hang with Franek and Schenk to give herself a shot at defending her title, but it's tough to go from having no competition all year to jumping in a race with two teammates who've pushed each other to some very fast times on many occasions throughout the season.

jsquire wrote:

No, 10:53 isn't all by itself. 10 minutes after an 800m PR, maybe more so. Or am I making too much of this?

no, its an impressive triple for sure, mostly because of the time involved.

but she's a 4:50 miler, and ran 4:56, so she wasn't flat out. the 800 PR is special, but she really didn't have to run that hard in the 3200. as you said yourself, she didn't have much competition since her school moved down a division.

in any case, is she going to run post-season meets? be nice to see her lock horns with other girls around the country.

I'm not the kind of guy who has info like that. But she ran at NOC last year and Penn and Millrose this year, so I'd be surprised if she skipped it.

i thought she ran 10:43 in the 32

Is Bridget related to Dan Franek that ran at Ohio State University in the late 80s early 90s???? Pound for pound he had to be the best 5k runner ever. He looked like AHhNold but he ran right around 14:00.

Dan is her uncle. Her father, Tom, was also a big strong guy who ran at Bowling Green.

How did Sarah Foster end up?

jsquire wrote:

This doesn't quite top some of the things I saw Chris Nelloms do at the state meet 16 years ago, but I think i belongs in the same league.

Hopefull she doesn't follow in Nelloms footsteps.

# December 1995: Nelloms was arrested for failing to make good on a $492 bad check written Aug. 18, 1995. He later paid the money he owed.

# Sept. 6, 1996: Was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault stemming from a confrontation with two teens in Trotwood.

# Oct. 29, 1998: Pled no contest to one count of public indecency.

# Jan. 8, 1999: Convicted of eight counts of child-sex crimes.

# Feb. 12, 1999: Sentenced to 40 years to life (without chance of parole until 2039) for eight child-rape offenses.

# Feb. 26, 1999: Entered prison.

# Dec. 3, 1999: An appeals court threw out four child-sex convictions on the grounds he should not have been tried in Ohio for crimes allegedly committed in Kentucky. Judge John W. Kessler imposed the four remaining convictions to be served consecutively.

# April 24, 2000: Lost his bid for a new trial.

# 2000-present: Serving his sentence at Warren Correctional Institution near Lebanon.

She placed third behind Franek and Schenk, ran 11:18.6x, a little under 10 secs off of her PB. She wound up in no-man's (or woman's) land after the duo built a good gap early and she left the rest of the field.

Kele wrote:

she left the rest of the field.

If the race had been 20 meters longer, she'd have been 4th.

It's true she was in no-man's land, but was fading badly in the end.

That is true, Ms. Beecham had a great finish which led to what I believe she said was a 14 second PR.

Catherine White of Virginia had a similar weekend at AA states - 5:05, 2:16, 10:49 for first in all three. Her 2006 and lifetime bests are 4:52 and 10:28 (first at Nike Indoor Nats in the 3200). She's a junior, was 11th at Footlocker Nats, and can probably run under 10:20 if she focuses on the deuce. She's not pushed in-state.

Bridget Franek's uncle is Dan Franek who ran for Ohio State. Tough s.o.b. And built like a brick shithouse.

He and Bridget's dad were from a farm family and they know all about hard work. I used to hear stories how they would do unique training regimes along the lines if you can remember the movie "Rocky 4" when he was in Russia lifting huge logs and running in deep snow. In fact Dan had a stress fracture and couldn't run over the winter his senior year but stayed fit with cross country skiing. Got down to 9:19 at his regional and won the 1984 Ohio AA 3200 with a 9:06.

I watched the Ohio State meet and have to say I was way more impressed with the performances of Infeld, Bizzari, and Franek then I was with any of the boy distance runners.

Franek totally dominated. She ran controlled in the 1600, set a meet record in the 800, and ran easy for most of the race in the 3200 and still broke a 21 year old meet record. She did have nice help with a very good teammate that ran with her but she went all out each race the last lap.

I will say that 1600 race betweed Bizzari and Infeld was incredible, the highlight of the meet IMOP. THose two were neck in neck the last 110 and never gave up. Its sort of a shame Franeks school dropped down to D2. The 1600 and 3200 for girls would have been legendary for years to come!

That Chad Balyo I will say looked very impressive in his 9:05 after going out in like 4:40. He looked pretty effortless and smooth that last mile of 4:25.

But what was up with all the top studs dropping the 1600 to focus on the 3200? That left the D1 mile almost a joke. 4:17? when has it been that slow?

The girls seemed to have the stones that day. I know racing is all about the win but everyone expected legitimate fast efforts from the top boys since they were only running one race.

jsquire wrote:

No, 10:53 isn't all by itself. 10 minutes after an 800m PR, maybe more so. Or am I making too much of this?

Winning four events at State Meet is amazing no matter what, but since she only had to beat her teammate in the tougher events (1600/3200) and they had a cakewalk in the 3200R it is a pretty controlled quadruple.

I believe my state (Michigan) has a rule that someone can only be entered in TWO individual events and two relays. And I think they have it capped at a maximum number of meters of racing too.

Those times for someone who has run 10:15 are pretty pedestrian (the 2:11 is the best by far). But they must have figured out that they could win the State Meet just with four girls, and good for them, I would have done that too.

This kind of quadruple was standard for Ritzenhein. Dual Meet, invite, Regionals, Conference, whatever. He would start with the 3200R (1:58-59) and then a 4:15-19 1600, then win the 800 in 1:54-1:59 and then cruise the 3200 to win. But I never saw him run slower than 9:20. I am sure he did when he was younger (a sophomore) or in a bad-weather dual meet, but I saw him run between 9:08 and 9:20 a bunch of times.

Franek di run 10:43-not 10:52. And the 800 was I agree her superior effort. If you know how that quadruple goes (even thought they do the 3200 relay the day before these days) that 10 min between the 800 and the 3200 is VERY short.

Nonetheless as a 10:15 runner the 10:43 might not stand out but it still was the fastest ever at that meet for the division she was in. And she was never pressing but I liked how she kicked it in hard. I think she knew what the records were and she nailed two. She's a hellion, watch out for her in the future.

The first time I saw Dan Franek race he went out in the lead from the gun, and I thought, "Oh great, a weightlifter/poser going out morning glory to impress his girlfriend for the first 200 yards".

He won easily and I couldn't make the physics of the physiques add up.