A Marathon, The Relays, And Softball Smiles

Kelly Widener was late for the weekly staff events meeting Tuesday.

Widener works on the compliance staff and also has event management responsibilities. She's also an Ohio State grad, undergrad and law school.

TigerBlog saw her shortly after the meeting. She looked like she was just running late, typical stuff. She has two little kids. Maybe one them was the cause.

Then TB found out why.

It was because she ran the Boston Marathon the day before. Her time, TB thinks, was a little below 3:30. That's pretty strong.

For Widener, it was her seventh completed marathon. That's seven more than TB will ever run.

The day after the marathon? She hardly seemed fazed by it at all.

So congrats to Kelly for her accomplishment.

The Boston Marathon started the week in track and field. The end brings the Penn Relays.

TigerBlog goes to Peter Farrell, the only head coach of women's track and field that Princeton has ever had, for all things track and field. And what was his take on the Relays?

Well, he said that he went to a food truck outside of Franklin Field and got a cheesesteak, pretzel and soda - all for $6.

Actually, TigerBlog's conversation with Farrell actually started with last weekend's meet, the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton. TigerBlog wondered if a meet like that, a huge track and field meet, which means a huge administrative undertaking, still got his juices flowing.

Clearly it does. You can talk to Farrell for two seconds to get that answer.

The Penn Relays is one of his favorite events of any year. TigerBlog went once, when he was at Penn. It's certainly entertaining.

If you're a track guy, then yes, it's about as good as it gets.

One event after another, for three days. High schools kids in one event. Olympians in the next.

Princeton has been competing in the Penn Relays since before it was the Penn Relays. In fact, the Penn Relays began in 1895 as an offshoot of an annual relay competition between Princeton and Penn.

At least that's what it says on the website:
When the University Track Committee, chaired by Frank B. Ellis ‘93, looked for ways of adding interest to their 1893 spring handicap meet, they struck on the idea of a relay, four men each running a quarter mile in succession. The idea created enough interest that a team from Princeton was invited to contest the event. Held at the end of the meet on May 12, the Princeton team of J.A. Chapman, George McCampbell, Isaac Brokow and Theodore Turner pulled away in the homestretch to beat Penn by eight yards with a time of 3:34.0.
The following year Penn exacted its revenge against the Princeton team on the University Field track, located at 37th and Spruce Streets, where the Quad Dormitory is now. Interest in the first two years’ races was such that the committee decided to sponsor a relay meet in 1895 with hopes of reviving sagging interest in Penn track. The first Penn Relays also served as the dedication for Franklin Field, built on the same ground it occupies today, but under a different guise. The only grandstand at the time was a wooden single-tiered bleacher on the South side of the field, along what is now the sprint straightaway.

TigerBlog never knew there was a track at 37th and Spruce, though he did live there for two years back as an undergraduate.

The Relays started with the decathlon and heptathlons. They get into full swing today and run through Saturday.

TigerBlog has seen a lot of football games in Franklin Field, but the most crowded he ever saw the old stadium was that one time he went to the Penn Relays.

In other news, there was supposed to be an epic thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. It was supposed to be absurd wind and rain and hail and all of that biblical stuff.

It certainly looked like that was going to be the case around 2:30 or so. And yes, a storm came, but it was hardly epic.

It was nasty enough to cancel the baseball game and wipe out the second game of the softball doubleheader.

Earlier, when it was 70 and perfect sunshine around 10:15 of so, TigerBlog went off to the PVC weight room to work out. When he walked out of the door in Caldwell that goes into the men's locker room, he walked smack into the middle of the softball team, in uniform, ready to head over the to field.

Every player on the team looked up at the stranger who walked into their circle. TB said "go get 'em" and kept walking.

Shanna Christian took his words seriously. The junior came within one out of throwing a no-hitter against Yale in the opener. She had two outs in the seventh and got a ground ball that the Yale batter barely beat to first. Then she got the last out for the one-hitter and the win.

Game 2 made it to the fifth inning with Yale ahead 5-0 before the rains came. The Tigers will be at Cornell for four games this weekend.

The Tigers are 8-7 in the league, with five games to play - the remainder of the Yale game and the four against Cornell. Penn is in first place in the division, at 10-6, with four against Columbia.

One thing that TigerBlog has noticed about softball pictures on goprincetontigers.com is that all of the players seem to be smiling. Not in their posed pictures. In their game pictures.

There are five action shots of Princeton softball players on the softball page of the website, and in three of them - with four players - there are wide smiles in the middle of games. TB has never seen anything like it.

Hey, it's fun to play softball at Princeton. What other conclusion can be drawn?

Either that, or they have a great sense of where the camera is.

 Nah. TB will stay with the though that they're having fun.