Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Jack Mastandrea ran 29:21 to place 10th in the 2024 USATF 10K Championship at the 47th edition of the Great Cow Harbor Run in Northport, NY. His teammate and training partner Jason Wetizel placed 12th with a time of 29:43 in a deep USA field. Jack's time was the fastest on this hilly and challenging course in GTC-ELITE history, while Weitzel now has three of the top five times in the program's history at Cow Harbor. 

Jack covered the final 5K in 14:38 after passing the first 5K mark in 14:43 for a "negative" split.  Mastandrea's tenth place was worth $300 in award money. Weitzel's first and second 5K splits were 14:49 and 14:54. Jason's 12th place finish was familiar as he also finished in that position in 2022 and 2023 with times of 29:40 and 29:46, respectively. 

It was Mastandrea's second top ten finish at a USATF Championship in the past three months. He also placed 7th in the 8K Championships in July at Kingsport's Crazy 8s Road Race. And earlier this month he was 13th at the 20K Championships at the Faxon Law New Haven Road Race.  

Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Karl Thiessen has been hired by Charleston Southern University for the position of ​assistant track & field/cross country coach to work primarily with the women's distance runners.

"We are excited to add Karl to our staff," said Charleston Southern Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Jim Stintzi." I believe his experience as a high-level runner at Tennessee and on the professional level will help our student-athletes and our track and cross country teams rise to another level!"

Thiessen spent the past year as a member of Greenville Track Club-ELITE. One of the highlights of his year came in the USATF 10K championships in Northport, NY (Great Cow Harbor 10K), where he placed 11th overall in the star-studded field. Among the three Half Marathons that he competed in, he ran a personal best of 1:04:00 at the 2024 Aramco Houston Half Marathon in January. He also ran a new course record of 24:06 in winning the Sunrise 8K in Simpsonville, SC. 

While residing in Greenville he was employed by Joy Real Estate, as part of GTC-ELITE's "Adopt An Athlete" program. He also worked with Blue Collar Endurance Training where he wrote training schedules for up-and-coming athletes and oversaw the development of over 15 athletes per month.

GTC-ELITE Director/Coach Mike Caldwell commented, "From our program's beginning, our mission has been to develop young adult athletes not only in their running careers, but also in life development. Karl only spent a year in our program, but we have seen him develop and mature as a person and most importantly discover and define his career interests. He deeply cares about running and we look forward to seeing him continue to learn and apply his knowledge with his collegiate athletes." 

Tuesday 8/6
​I got a great night of sleep and woke up around 7:30am. My mind felt clear and I wanted to focus on having more clarity on everything. I did my only prescribed run and I’ll be honest, it didn’t feel the best. I could still feel the upper glute/hamstring area. This pain feels familiar to me. I suffered this same condition in the same leg and area during my last year running at the University of Florida in 2016. It was officially diagnosed as proximal hamstring tendinitis. I didn’t require surgery and was able to make a full recovery after a rehab program administered by the great Scott Greenberg at Florida. It wasn’t until recently in the month of July that I started feeling the same pain. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions about the diagnosis and went to the clinic to seek guidance. There I worked with a physiotherapist named Lydia. She was a Godsend and gave me a series of different treatments for over an hour. She used Tecar therapy which uses electric currents to transfer energy to the tissues of the body to promote recovery. She followed that with isometric exercises to help strengthen the glute/hamstring. We finished with the Game Ready cold compression boots. She showed me the Alter G treadmill that allows running without using full body weight on the legs. We came up with a game plan to use the Alter G treadmill for the remaining days leading up to the race and the same treatment that I received today. She also went one step further and made an appointment for me to see the doctor to make sure everything was ok. I saw the Doctor and he confirmed that he believes it may be proximal hamstring tendinitis. He wanted me to get an ultra sound first to further look into the affected area. The radiologist did see some major inflammation, but did not see any tears. He suggested that I get an MRI to be completely sure as the ultra sound doesn’t always show tissue damage. I got the results back within a few hours. The MRI showed a partial tear of more than 50 percent on my conjoint tendon in my hamstring. I felt like all the air got knocked out of my stomach. I was in disbelief and the doctor went over the scan to show me the tear. I could tell by his reaction that it was serious. He recommended that I not race the marathon. I could feel my world crashing down. I was devastated. The timing was terrible. I didn’t understand why this was happening to me. After some time to myself to accept the diagnosis, I spoke to Coach Caldwell and we both decided it would be okay to start the race and enjoy the experience since it didn't hurt when not running faster.  After 5k I would withdraw due to the injury. I knew that this was the right decision for my long term health.