Greenville Track Club-ELITE - a post-collegiate, Olympic-development program
11 USA Olympic Trials Qualifiers
established 2012
11 USA Olympic Trials Qualifiers
established 2012
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The year 2020 has been like no other in most of our lifetimes. With a deadly global pandemic causing havoc and resulting in many restrictions, etc., athletics events were either cancelled, postponed or formatted differently. Road racing and Track & Field were no exceptions. Even with such uncertainty, ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE was able to perform admirably and sent two athletes to the USA Olympic Team Marathon Trials in Atlanta (just before COVID-19 shutdowns began) and also set three South Carolina road racing state records and multiple personal bests. Here are the highlights from 2020: JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH - APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
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ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Victor Pataky will be departing the program and Greenville, SC as he has accepted a collegiate coaching position at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. Pataky joined the post-collegiate, Olympic-development in August 2018 with an expectation of training and competing for two years while pursing his running dreams. His career ambition was and is to coach at the collegiate level and this opportunity allows him to pursue that goal starting in January, 2021. Victor graduated from Centre College in Kentucky in 2016 and then coached as an assistant at Webster University in St. Louis, MO, before relocating to Greenville in August 2018. He improved his personal best in the 3000m Steeplechase from 9:03.87 to 8:56.67 in 2019 before not being able to compete on the track in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also became the first coach for the Greenville Track Club's Youth Running Program -- the GTC Rabbits. In September of 2020, he placed 4th in the Low Country Elite 5K before running the 7.195K leg in the 2020 ASICS World Ekiden Relay in November, in which his team placed first among USA region teams and won the Retail Partners category while representing his employer, Fleet Feet Greenville. He finished his almost two-and-a-half year tenure in the program by running a huge 64 second personal best at the Mortgage Network Half Marathon, where he ran 1:07:05. He was ranked third in the December, 2020 South Carolina Road Race Rankings. "We going to miss Victor," explained Coach Mike Caldwell. "He was a great teammate and especially a great training partner with Eddie Garcia. Those two have run countless kilometers together over the past two-and-a-half years. Victor was a pleasure to coach, followed our advice, and he'll become a very good coach at the college level." GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles, one qualifier/participant for the 2019 Pam American Games Marathon in. Lima, Peru and three qualifiers/two participants for the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, GA. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 48-year-old Greenville Track Club, Joy Real Estate, the Borch Foundation, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, Coach Bob Williams Pace Calculator, the DorsiFlex (stretching device), the MOBO board and On Pace Wellness (nutrition coaching). The club is a proud and active member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF. ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE, the post-collegiate, Olympic-development program based in Greenville, SC, has announced a partnership with On Pace Wellness. On Pace Wellness is owned and operated by Wilfredo Benitez and is based in Portland, OR. OPW provides nutritional coaching for athletes looking to improve and/or optimize their nutritional resources. "We are excited to enlist Will and On Pace Wellness in our ongoing efforts to optimize the nutritional choices of our athletes," stated Director/Coach Mike Caldwell. "We believe that nutrition is a vital component in the training and competitive process for every athlete and especially for our athletes at their elite level." Benitez has post-graduate degrees (MsCN and M.Ed) and has provided nutritional coaching to multiple and varied professional and amateur athletes. He is also a USATF Certified Level 1 Coach. For more information regarding On Pace Wellness please visit: https://www.onpacewellness.com. In additional to On Pace Wellness ASICS GTC-ELITE's resource circle includes:
GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles, one qualifier/participant for the 2019 Pam American Games Marathon in. Lima, Peru and three qualifiers/two participants for the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, GA. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 48-year-old Greenville Track Club, Joy Real Estate, the Borch Foundation, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, Coach Bob Williams Pace Calculator, the DorsiFlex (stretching device), the MOBO board and On Pace Wellness (nutrition coaching). The club is a proud and active member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Annie Rodenfels completed her 2020 competitive season with a huge personal best in the Five and Dime Athletics Meeting at Columbia International University near South Carolina's state capital city. Rodenfels had run 15:49.53 at the Music City Distance Carnival in Nashville back in August. She knocked a whopping 14 seconds from that performance with her 15:35.18 as she placed a close second to Jenna Hutchins, who won in 15:34.37. Hutchins entered the event with her sights set on besting the US High School Outdoor record for 5,000 meters. The Atlanta Track Club's Allie Wilson was brought in to set the pace and led Hutchins and Rodenfels through a quick first 1600 in 4:57. After passing 2,000 meters in 6:12, Hutchins opened a small gap on Rodenfels. They passed 3K in 9:21.18 and 9:24.08, respectively. The junior from Johnson City, TN's Science Hill High School maintained her lead passing the bell-lap mark in 14:23.84 with Rodenfels still over three seconds back at 14:26.93. Annie ran a quick 1:08.25 final 400, closing on Hutchins' also quick 1:10.83, to finish only .71 seconds behind. Hutchins15:34.47 broke Katelyn Tuohy's US high school girls record of 15:37.12 and is one of the top high school performances in history. This was Annie's tenth competitive effort in 2020 and remarkably her tenth personal best and eleventh going back to December 2019. Rodenfels newest teammate, Emily Forner, ran her first race since joining the program in early November and ran 17:06.47. Forner passed 3,000 meters in 10:05 before slowing over the final 1600, due to just beginning formal workouts last month. Both Rodenfels and Forner were NCAA DIII champions. Much thanks to the valiant efforts of race director Dave Milner, of Nashville, TN, who organized and produced this event under extreme difficulty due to COVID-19. Each competitor produced negative COVID-19 test results during the week before the meet. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles, one qualifier/participant for the 2019 Pam American Games Marathon in. Lima, Peru and three qualifiers/two participants for the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, GA. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 48-year-old Greenville Track Club, Joy Real Estate, the Borch Foundation, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, Coach Bob Williams Pace Calculator, the DorsiFlex (stretching device) and the MOBO board. The club is a proud and active member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Eddie Garcia and Annie Rodenfels lead the men's and women's South Carolina Road Race rankings, which were published on December 6, 2020. Their teammate Victor Pataky was ranked third among the men. Garcia's two most recent road races both took place in the state's Low Country, where he won the Low Country Elite 5K in September and then broke his own SC state resident's record in the Half Marathon last weekend with a time of 1:04:32. He placed 8th overall, but was the first SC finisher, in the Mortgage Network Half Marathon. Pataky also ran a personal best in the later event at 1:07:05 and had previously placed 4th in the Low Country Elite 5K. Rodenfels last road competition was the Low Country Elite 5K, where she set the SC state resident record of 16:09. The number of road competitions in South Carolina (and most other states) has been dramatically reduced during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of those events in the Low Country (Hardeeville/Bluffton, SC) were "elite" events and conducted under COVID-19 protocols, including pre- & post-race face masks requirements. The most recent event also required proof of negative COVID-19 tests. South Carolina Road Race Rankings (as of 12.06.20)The SC Road Race Rankings are published by Bill Marable. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles, one qualifier/participant for the 2019 Pam American Games Marathon in. Lima, Peru and three qualifiers/two participants for the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, GA. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 48-year-old Greenville Track Club, Joy Real Estate, the Borch Foundation, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, Coach Bob Williams Pace Calculator, the DorsiFlex (stretching device) and the MOBO board. The club is a proud and active member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
Garcia Breaks His South Carolina State Record by 53 seconds at the Mortgage Network Half Marathon.12/6/2020 ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Eddie Garcia and Victor Pataky both ran to huge personal bests in the initial Mortgage Network Half Marathon in Hardeeville, SC. On a crisp, perfect for running, Sunday morning Garcia covered the flat, three-loop course in a new South Carolina State resident record of 1:04:32. That was 53 seconds faster than the 1:05:25 he ran in Columbia back in February before COVID-19 basically shut down road racing in the state. His time earned him eighth in a deep field of elite men and $300. Pataky ran 1:07:05, which knocked 64 seconds his 1:08:09 as he placed 17th. ASICS GTC-ELITE alum Joe Niemiec also lowered his personal best from 1:06:49 to 1:05:48 in placing 13th. Niemiec moved from Greenville, SC to Florida for a new job back in June. The first time event was won by former Univeristy of Michigan standout and 2018 NCAA 10,000m champion Ben Flanagan (Canada) of Reebok Boston, who ran 1:03:17 and was followed by ON ZAP Endurance's Matt McClintock (1:03:38). Kenya's Athanos Kioko, who led for almost 10 miles, placed third in 1:03:47. Of the 40 male finishers, 26 ran sub 1:08 or better. In the women's race, which started 10 minutes after the men's, ASICS GTC-ELITE's Mackenzie Lowe ran her first race in over 13 months. After taking time off from running due to a foot injury, she only joined the program and began training in late August. She placed 18th with a time of 1:20:49. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles, one qualifier/participant for the 2019 Pam American Games Marathon in. Lima, Peru and three qualifiers/two participants for the 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, GA. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 48-year-old Greenville Track Club, Joy Real Estate, the Borch Foundation, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, Coach Bob Williams Pace Calculator, the DorsiFlex (stretching device) and the MOBO board. The club is a proud and active member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
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