Lynn Woods Relay

The Lynn Woods relay has been a summer tradition. Four runners each take a run at 2.5 miles of up and down hills in Lynn Woods. As of 3pm yesterday, I was homeless, letting my CMS mates who have frequented the Lynn Woods races all summer recruit another to fill out a team. My attempt to get a CMS masters team fell through too. So it did not look good so I planned on just running over to to watch the race. But, a tip from Brett Rickenbach advised Junyong Pak was seeking to fill out his team. Boom, I was in as of hours before the race. Junyong and I were on a previous Lynn Woods relay team moons ago. I sprinted home and met up with Brett and we ran over to the race. I found Junyong to get my number and then with Manuel Rednon and Kyle Hewson who made up our team.

Pak led off with a 14:10 (7th fastest split of the day) and handed off to Manuel (owner of Los Chamos -  a Venezuelan Restaurant on Union Street) who turned an ankle out on the goat path but toughed it out on his first run (18:26) in Lynn Woods. He handed off to Kyle, a sophomore at Beverly High School aiming to crack the top 5 in cross country next month. He got through in 17:38. I was the anchor and took off out onto the course. I cheered on every person and club runner in sight. There was no pressure but wanted to run the 15 minutes that I said I would do. I felt pretty good but all climbing was taxing. I saw Oti Pizarro at the turn-around and thought I might have a chance to catch him on the way back to the finish. I pressed on and made up the gap only at the top of the last hill (400m before the finish). I passed him on the way down and brought it home with a split of 15:08 – good for 2^nd fastest master time behind David Long. The team finished 9^th overall. Not too bad. Team Results

I capped off the night with Krissy and the Wicked Running Club at Polcaris on Rt. 1 for Pizza. It gave me some time to catch up with friends.