USATF New England Outdoor 5000m championships

Start of the 5000m with me staring right into Krissy's lense

Dan, myself, and Todd between 1 and 2 miles

Some CMS teammates that were talking about racing the 5,000m at the New England Outdoor Championships at Regis College in Weston. The 5K was the first event in the morning which is easier to plan for and around on a Sunday so I signed up an hour before the race. I put down a seed time of 16:54 based on my An Ras Mor result back in March (the New England 5K Road Race Championship). This put me into the 16^th seed in heat one. My start position was to the far outside lane which suited me well to slide in carefully after the starting gun went off. I settled into the back of the race of over 20 athletes. After a few careful laps, I put in a surge to get behind Todd Callaghan. Dan Verrington was right behind me and his goal was to run 16:52 which was fine with me. Mile one passed around 5:22. The track was warm. A water table was out there but I did not see anyone take any water (had to reach out into lane 3). I kept behind Todd as his pace was good. We slowly caught a few runners. I missed the 2^nd mile split but had started to focus on the count down of laps. I figured to give a good effort with two laps to go but my body had other thoughts in the heat. I was wiped out but told Todd that we could catch Rod Hemingway who was just ahead and coming back to us. We both did and went around him. Todd picked up his pace with a lap to go and I was fading fast. I knew Rod would come back and make a race of it. Come back he did! He passed me and charged after Todd with 150m to go. I yelled to Todd “man on” and he picked it up to finish just ahead of Rod. I finished 11^th in 16:53. Not too bad and close to the seed time and my expectations. I collected myself and chatted up the event with others. I ran a few miles with Todd following the race and then another set of miles with Jason Coukouras and Francis Burdett. Next races on the calendar is the John Carson 2 mile and then Loon Mountain – US Mountain Running Championships. Krissy took a lot of photos of the 5,000m events that broke down into a women’s race and two heats of the men’s race. Full results.

Rod and I with 250m to go behind Todd

5000 Meter Run Men

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    Name                     Age Team                    Finals

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  1   236 SEAN DUNCAN         24 Western Mass          15:06.71 

  2    36 Eric Couture        26 02-Unattache          15:17.79 

  3    75 Alex Hall           27 Boston Athle          15:58.95 

  4   128 Greg Putnam         44 Central Mass          16:01.48 

  5   130 Jeffrey Ragazzini   24 Greater Bost          16:12.60 

  6   106 Mark Mayall         42 New Balance           16:32.43 

  7   213 NATHANIEL WEBBER    22 02-Unattache          16:34.14 

  8    18 Francis Burdett     49 Greater Spri          16:35.94 

  9    23 Todd Callaghan      44 Central Mass          16:49.27 

 10    80 Rodney Hemingway    38 Greater Bost          16:50.04 

 11   412 James Pawlicki      39 Central Mass          16:53.17 

 12   359 Titus Mutinda       49 Team RUN              17:07.35 

 13   115 Eric Narcisi        34 Whirlaway Ra          17:10.44 

 14    48 Dave Dunham         50 Central Mass          17:21.74 

 15   154 Daniel Verrington   52 Central Mass          17:22.99 

 16   925 Joe O'Leary         43 Somerville R          17:27.44 

 17    71 Thomas Grenier Jr   43 02-Unattache          17:31.20 

 18    37 Anthony Crudale     37 Greater Bost          17:39.62 

 19   163 Ian Wright          27 SISU Project          18:04.34
 20    33 Shawn Conway        43 Greater Lowe          18:12.86