05.16.07
CAC in the Chapel Hill News!
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Local track club still reaching new heights
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Call the Morehead Planetarium; alert the backyard astronomers. Realign the Hubble Space Telescope. The stars are suddenly in alignment for the Carrboro Athletics Club (CAC), and more and more local track and cross-country fans are tuning into this “music of the spheres.”Under the direction of its runner/coach Joan Nesbit Mabe, CAC’s star was already on the rise before the return of UNC standout Trish Nervo and international-caliber runner Jason Jabaut, a Villanova graduate who recently relocated to Chapel Hill after a time training on the West Coast.
Jabaut said what some may see as a serendipitous assemblage of talent, the 1996 U.S. Olympian Nesbit Mabe calls fate.
“Joan doesn’t see coincidence in things like this,” Jabaut said, chuckling. “But things come together, and suddenly all the chess pieces are lined up.”
Nesbit Mabe said the result is a rare opportunity for the local community to share in its appreciation of potential.
“It’s a symbiotic relationship when you have athletes like this in a community,” she said. “It builds a relationship between the younger runners and older runners.
“There’s a running boom going on in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and it would be a great thing for anyone to invest in.”
The wealth of young talent is supported by veterans who just won’t stop winning.
On May 6, CAC runners gathered at Wallace Wade Stadium for the Duke Twilight track and field meet, where Jabaut won the 800-meter run going away. But it was Nesbit Mabe and John Hinton who stole the show.
A week after turning 45 and entering a new age bracket of masters’ competition, John Hinton turned in a 3:56.39 in the 1500-meter run to set a new world age-group record in the event.
“I ran fairly smart,” Hinton said. “I knew to get the record, I couldn’t fall back to the second pack of runners, but I knew that lead pack would pull me through to the record.”
Ten minutes after Hinton’s triumph, Nesbit Mabe set the new American standard for women aged 45-49 in the 1500 at 4:43.21.
When she’s not setting records, Nesbit Mabe is pouring energy into the CAC — an organization whose moniker has altered and whose strength has grown over the years.
“Its name was ‘Team Wednesday’ since about 1987 when I was training myself,” Nesbit Mabe said. “I was training with Austin Guiles, and a lot of grad students used to come over, then Betsy Kempter joined the group, and we always met on Wednesday nights.
“Back then, everybody was ‘Team-Somebody.’”
Twenty years and five Summer Olympics games later, Team Wednesday has evolved into the CAC, now recognized by USA Track and Field (USATF) as an Elite Club.
“Only about 20 clubs in the U.S. have that,” Nesbit Mabe said, “and that’s a big deal.”
Nesbit Mabe said a key to the elevation of CAC’s status in the past year has been the security of sponsorships, facilitated by Fleet Feet Carrboro co-owner and Cardinal Track Club founder Bobby Biles.
“Bobby used his contact with New Balance,” Nesbit Mabe said, “and I used my history with New Balance. We wrote a proposal and pitched it. All Bobby had to do was justify it with New Balance that I would have a salary so that I could justify time away from my family to do it.
“These athletes go to a national meet if they qualify,” she added, “they get shoes, spikes, uniforms from New Balance, there’s my salary, and WorkoutLog.
“WorkoutLog.com, Fleet Feet, and New Balance are our three main sponsors. We have a Web site up at http://www.carboroac.com and Dave Mabe is our blogger.”
Seven men currently run with CAC: John Hinton, Rob Benjamin, Jabaut, Alex L’Heureux, Marc Jeuland, Brock Phillips, and Devin Swann, who trains with CAC but runs with the Raleigh Running Outfitters. Four women are also officially contracted to the club, including Nesbit Mabe herself, Trish Nervo, Caroline Blatti, and Sarah Hallenbeck. Nesbit Mabe’s husband Dave Mabe, 1996 Antiguan Olympian Kim Certain and Dianna Rancourt train with CAC but are not yet contracted.
“They have to run a certain time — there has to be a standard,” Nesbit Mabe said. “We had a time trial to see who was fast enough to run with us this year. We’ll have another contract signing at the beginning of next year.”
Those under contract turned in impressive performances at April’s venerable Penn Relays at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
“Devin Swan PR’d (had a ‘personal record’) in the 5K (14:27),” Nesbit Mabe said, “Marc Jeuland PR’d with a 30:11 in the 10K, Alex L’Heureux was second place in the steeplechase (9:05), and Jason Jabaut won the mile (4:02). Trish Nervo also ran 36:38 in the 10K coming off injuries.”
While the CAC is certainly putting the local community on the national (and international) map, Hinton said he remembers leaner days.
“In 1995, I’d kind of retired,” Hinton explained. “I got hooked up with Joan probably around March of 1996. At one point, everyone moved away, and then it was just Dave (Mabe) and me.”
“The Team Wednesday group dwindled down to two people at one point,” Nesbit Mabe said. “I’d give the workouts to Dave, and then he’d go to the track on Wednesday nights and relay them to John.”
“I think if it weren’t for having Dave out there, I would have come close to retiring again,” said Hinton. “I really appreciate Dave sticking around and keeping me going.”
The current surge in talent and ambition locally can be partially attributed to the connection between Nesbit Mabe and the relocation of Fleet Feet’s corporate headquarters to Carrboro.
“Tom Raynor moved his corporate Fleet Feet offices to Carrboro, and that really made us a bigger place on the running map,” Nesbit Mabe said. “He’s been asking me when I was going to start coaching again.”
Nesbit Mabe said Hinton’s performances are paramount to CAC’s credibility.
“John has to run well,” she said. “If I can get a 45-year old man to run that fast, they’ll believe in my training, because John completely believes in my training. Without John’s faith in me, there would be no Carrboro Athletics Club.”
Over and above that original nucleus, however, Nesbit Mabe has been picky about who would make up the CAC — as Jabaut can attest.
“I’ll be honest, I had every intention of training on my own,” Jabaut said. “My girlfriend Trish (Nervo) … had trained under Joan in college (at UNC) though, and she just raved about her. We were out in California, and we didn’t even know we were moving to the East coast until, literally, a week-and-a-half before we moved.”
Still, Jabaut had some hoops to jump through before joining CAC.
“Joan asked me to write an essay on why I run,” Jabaut said, laughing. “I wrote multiple rough drafts — 30 is probably a conservative number.”
The product of such entry exams is an amalgamation of running mathematicians, poets, and renaissance men and women, joined together by a common love of running and an uncommon tolerance for pain.
“There’s a little bit of everything out there,” Hinton said. “You’ve got guys who can run fast 800s right up to marathoners.”
“I’ve joked about this group being (from) the Island of Misfit Toys, from the television show ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’” Nesbit Mabe said. “So many of these people, without a support structure, would have to quit running. I didn’t want to see people with real talent fall through the cracks.”
Nesbit Mabe’s compassion, runners say, can occasionally be vented as tough love.
“Let’s say one practice some guys are in a playful mood or sandbagging it,” Jabaut said. “She’s got so much experience, she can pick that up right away. … There have been times when she’s had to rein me in, and there are times where she tells me to get moving. I’m a miler, and I’m always wanting to run 120-mile weeks. I’ve done that before, and nothing good has come out of it. Joan’s the perfect balance for me.”
Nervo said Nesbit Mabe was never shy about lighting a fire under her runners.
“I came in my sophomore year (at UNC) completely out of shape,” she recalled, “and she’d given birth to her (second daughter) just two weeks earlier. We were out running hill repeats. She was sprinting up the hill and screaming at me about how she’d just had a baby but she could still beat me up the hill. She said I had two weeks to get in shape or I was out (of the program). It worked though.”
A proponent of embracing pain as a means to an end, Nesbit Mabe’s tolerance for discomfort is legendary.
“I’ve never met anyone who has taken as much pain as Joan,” Hinton said. “To make the Olympics, you have to be the best in the world. She understood what it took, and she was willing to take the pain.”
CAC runners understand that victory is a balm that soothes a lot of aches, and Nesbit Mabe predicts success for her runners on a grand scale.
“We will have three athletes going to Olympic trials next year in Jason Jabaut, Marc Jeuland, and Alex L’Heureux to the Canadian Trials,” she said. “(Jason) could be really good,” she said, “and I also feel like Marc Jeuland has so much potential. In his debut marathon, he ran 2:27, and the next year, he ran 2:20.
“John Hinton will go as an exhibition athlete. Trish Nervo also has a shot, and I’m hoping college graduations bring us one or two more.”
While the club once called “Team Wednesday” has known many victories, numerous incarnations, and even a few frustrations, it continues to run strong.
“People will naturally come and go,” Jabaut said, “But, no, (the CAC’s) not going away.”
And whatever’s in the stars for individual members of the meteorically emerging CAC, for local runners and running enthusiasts, things are certainly looking up.
Randy B. Young can be reached at chnsports@nando.com or 932-8743.
Tbe Chapel Hill News
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