The Dry Creek Striders traditionally do a Super Bowl Time Trial on Super Bowl Sunday and this year, we continued that. We decided on a two-mile run at the Mead High School track for early this morning. Three of us were able to make it and we had varying expectations. Collin was relatively tapered and looking for a solid predictor of his time expectations for the season. DJ was not as tapered but had been incorporating speed work into his training. I’ve just started my formal training and was coming in after a tough week of training mileage.
Before diving into the results of that and moving solidly into 2026, there are a few notable team results from 2025 to highlight. All of us tried carbon-plated shoes for the first time and our times were very good with them. While that’s a small sample size, so far they lived up to their reputation. I tried a new event, the 3000M, on a track. DJ ensured that we kept our interstate racing alive as he competed in two races in Florida. Collin earned the team’s 50th individual win this past fall. And, we notched our second-ever podium sweep in March at the Lucky Brew 5K in Windsor.
Onto 2026. For the Super Bowl time trial, we met at 8:00 with an expected start time of 8:30, factoring in a warm-up run, stretching, etc. The order of finish really isn’t doubt. The big questions are what our times look like against our expectations. Our reactions to our results ranged from “meh” to enthused. I came in on weary legs and my time reflected that, so it wasn’t a big surprise. DJ finished within the realm of his expectations. Collin came in faster than his predicted time.
As an added bonus, since this year is Super Bowl LX, we did a 60M dash after the two-mile. None of us are or ever have been sprinters and the results pretty much reflected what you would expect from three distance runners who just finished a two-mile, have no starting blocks, and possess zero sprinting experience. But, we each earned a personal best (it had to be since we’d never done one before) and it was fun.
We’re still sorting out the beginning of the 2026 race schedule and will keep that updated on our team page.