Mill Cities Relay

Today was another edition of the Mill Cities Relay. The men’s masters team for SRR had a few line up changes that had guys move into other divisions this year. I felt bad for declining to run the long leg of 9.4 miles several weeks ago. With XC Nationals coming up, I wanted to save the legs. I got leg one, which is still a 5.4 mile distance but had a new start location from the Wings Bingo Facility which was ripe with the smell of cigarettes as soon as you approached it.

I got a good clean start and settled in. At one point, I had three other SRR runners within arms reach in the 1^st mile which I clocked around 5:36. I was a stride behind David Long from Wicked. He would extend that stride to several over the next few miles. As would the SRR mates like Todd Prokop and John Longo. Arthur Besse, running for NMC, went by looking good more than half way through. I encouraged him to keep going and try to catch David (Arthur would run a 30:54 for 5.4 miles). I did keep Alex Hall (Whirlaway) close and managed to pass him just before the end of the leg where I handed off to Jim Rhoades with the 3^rd slot in men’s masters position. 

I picked up Jim’s car, changed my shirt and drove off to his exchange point at Greater Lowell. I ran over to the exchange point and gave Darrin Cormier a heads up and to expect Jim. Jim arrived and handed off to Darren who ran 2.4 miles to hand off to Jesse Morrow, our team captain who took one for the team by running the longest leg of the day (9.4 miles). At least we had the wind at our back for the most part. He handed off to John Wichers who took it home to Lawrence. Jim and I parked at the top of the hill on the last leg – 400m before the Lawrence town line. He took several photos for the hour before we packed up and headed to the finish line.

In the end, the our team placed 31^st overall. We were the 5^th master team for the day, respectable, considering the talent out there. My pace was 5:39 based on the time of 31:14 (I stopped the watch after my hand off) while Alex recorded a 31:06 right behind me. Everyone joined inside the Claddagh Pub for some grub. I had to leave during the awards but I saw several Bricks picked up by SRR. Overall, the club placed 2^nd overall, just three points ahead of 3^rd place. Every place counted! Results

31   164 SRR - JESSE AND THE RIPPERS   

MM  JIM PAWLICKI   JOHN WICHERS  DARREN CORMIER   JESSE MORROW    JIM RHOADES   2:53:28