Mill Cities Relay

Today was the 31st running of the Mill Cities Relay - consisting of 27 miles, 5 legs, two states, and 1 river. Joe and Sandy Armstrong from Wicked Running Club picked Krissy and I up for the ride to Nashua. I met up with Jim Rhoades to give him his number and drop off my running bag before heading out for a 2 mile warm up. I was running leg number one for the Somerville Road Runners Men's Masters team. I went through the mile in 5:26 in about 5 seconds behind Brian Keefe from SRR. My third mile was the slowest (see below) per Garmin. I recall SRR training mate Kieran Condon passing by and I stayed with him for less than 800m before a few more guys went by. We were fortunate to have a tail wind. Mike Paulin from the Wicked Running Club and D5K weekly runs passed me during mile four. Mike and I finished the Vermont City Marathon together back in 2013. I dug down to surge back and pass Mike after mile five and held him off, handing off to Jim Rhoades. I drove his car to the next exchange zone to pick Jim up and watch him hand off to Jesse Morrow. Jim and I then went to the boat house. We missed Jesse finish and hand off to Greg Picklesimer who was taking on the long leg. We drove the back roads over to the fourth exchange zone where Greg was handing off to Joe O'Leary. As we drove past, it was obvious that they were in the midst of the exchange so we drove into Lawrence so Jim could take some photos (see the link in the results below). Joe looked good running past us as did the rest of the SRR folks. We got back in the car to warm up and drive to the finish at the Claddagh Pub in Lawrence. After watching the finish line for a bit, we headed in for some food and drink for a few hours. Team photos were taken and awards were given. Our team got a Mill Cities Brick for the 1st place men's masters team! The post race set up is awesome to catch up with everyone and all things running. There were funny stories all around.........

Dan Vassallo passed 61 runners on leg 4
Festus being Festus
Ask Paul Hammond about the story behind the Cowboy boots
Where was Mike Quintal?

Joe O'Leary, Jim Rhoades, Jim Pawlicki, and Greg Picklesimer

Statistics from the Garmin 220
30:25 overall time (30:01 in 2013 and maybe under 30 in 2012 - stopped at 30:22 after hand off)
5.43 miles
5:36 mile pace

5:26
5:34
5:46
5:34
5:39
2:24 (.43)

Full Results