Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Chanukah Run a Latke 5K

Doug Bollen was selling this race to Krissy and I the other night. It sounded like a decent way to break up a Sunday morning and keep the journey of miles interesting. The start and finish was outside the Chabad Hall on Burrill St in Swampscott which is 100 yards away from ocean and Kings Beach which is an awesome place to run either toward Nahant or through Swampscott to Marblehead.

I got on the start line after running the first mile for an out and back. I jumped out into the lead and had some company on my heels. I was not sure who it was and did not peek back. I went through the mile around 5:39 and it got quiet. Then the footsteps came right back as the course began to climb. The runner, Sean Kay, passed me and put in a decent little gap (maybe 10 seconds) through mile two. I was trying to keep it together while running into the wind on Humphrey Street. 

I noticed that I was closing the gap and this gave me some confidence that we might just have a good race for the win at the end. I got within a stride at the top of the last hill, 3 miles, and he looked back and took off using his 4:42 mile speed to the finish. I surrendered and finished 5 seconds back in 18:09. Full results. He revenged a 5K loss to me at the Dory Run in run over some of the same roads in the past.

I went out immediately for a cool down after giving Sean a fist bump. Upon return to the temple, Sufganiyah (a jelly doughnut) and coffee was waiting for me. I scored a Dunkin Donuts gift card for placing first in my age group. I caught up with Sean who is continues to run some personal best times in cross country and track for his high school team. He will be breaking 10 minutes for the 2 mile before the year is over. 

Krissy and I after the race with the cool shirts we bought



Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Assault on Mount Hood 3.5 mile cross country snowfest

The snow started to fall before Dan Vassallo picked me up. We were heading to the Assault on Mount Hood 3.5 cross country race in Melrose. It was going to be fun. I have not raced on snow and with it falling in a long time without snowshoes. We got to the Mount Hood golf course soon enough and did a warm up out on the golf course sort of checking out the first two miles with Dan and Scott Mindel before I headed back to get into the racing gear. I carefully hand-picked a Brooks Puregrip 4 and was impressed with the traction on the snow covered grass which accumulated 2 inches. However, the cart paths or any pavement were sketchy at best.  We had a team of three and felt decent for a CMS team win.
Terry on my tail after 2.5 miles

The race immediately went down a hill. I saw a few people fall - in a safe slow motion kind of way. I was pretty careful to keep on my feet and stay away from those sliding down the hill on their asses. It was quite funny. I scored a guy from Mystic Runners a 8.0 on his tumble. Being as cautious as I was buried me behind at least 40 runners. I worked to move into the top 20 over the next mile.  I saw several orange singlets ahead from Cambridge Sports Union (CSU). I recognized Kevin Delaney and Terry McNatt. I ended up battling them for a while. Terry was quick and fearless down the hills. I was able to close any deficit up the hills. The footwear I had on was impressive for the traction but was crap on any pavement. I went out of my way to run on the grass even if it caused me to not get the best line or tangent.

The race had a tough climb toward the Mount Hood tower but never approached the base of it. As the race started to decline into mile three, Kevin was going after Terry and I followed with astutely. However, once we hit the driveway with 400m to go, I had to downshift into defensive mode. I lost any and all battles going into the downhill finish. Kevin and Terry ran 22:50 and 51 to my 22:56 (20th place). I went through the finish chute and confirmed that Scott and Dan went 1-2 overall. We immediately changed into some warm clothes and ran over the course for a cool down.


Upon return, there was plenty of beer, pasta, salad, bread, and chowder for everyone. In a bit of a surprise, our team never got called up as one of the top three open teams, hence striking out on reclaiming the top team as CMS has done in the past. After the awards, we approached the race director, Brian who is as cool as it gets. After researching the team entry forms, he found ours but it never got entered. He immediately let us pick out any Nutcracker on the table. And we did. 

CMS polar bears: Dan, Scott, and I

Polar Beverages getting free adverisement

Yes, Mount Hood Beer Glass, Nutcracker, and limited edition "Straight Outta Peabody" brew


Dan with the spiffy Nutcracker pick up

Hardware for the day

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

34th Annual Mill Cities Relay

I had leg 1 for the Mill Cities Relay race: 5 runner relay from Nashua, NH along the Merrimack River, finishing up in Lawrence.  27 miles, 5 legs, 2 states, 1 river is the deal here. This is a fun event as it is a great team event of the 19 running clubs that take part. The Somerville Road Runners put some time and effort into this and it is hard not to take part in the fun. I was fortunate enough to get onto a men’s masters team.  I got a good clean start and tried to determine who else was a master runner. My goal was to be as close as possible to the lead for the category after my 5.5 mile leg. I was running either in front of or behind fellow yellow SRR Kyle Pochini most of the way.  

Two runners went past me after 2.5 miles. The first was a GLRR runner who clipped my heels twice followed by apologies. He followed to crush the 2nd half of the leg. The other was a woman from WRT who held me off by 10 seconds or so in the end. I finished up with a time of 33:10, 5:55 per mile pace for the 5.6 that my Garmin captured. I am not certain but think I was in the top 3 for the master category after leg 1. I handed off to Sanjay D’Souza who ran 6:15’s for leg 2.

Dan Verrington, Dave Dunham, Joe OLeary, and Kieran at the boat house in Lowell (3rd exchange zone)

Kieran Condon and Jason Lachapelle were there at the exchange waiting for me. We drove to the next exchange zone along the course cheering on the runners of all teams. We dropped Jason off for his leg 3 (2.5 miles) and then drove to the boat house in Lowell where Kieran got warmed up and ready for leg 4. I snapped a few photos and caught up with some folks. It was nice to be a spectator. Jason came in and handed off to Kieran. Sanjay was cooling down from the finish of his leg over to us so we finally got in the car and I drove us  along leg 4. We watched an epic battle between Kieran and Todd Prokop who had made up a 45 second deficit. They battled after 3 miles into the leg 4 all the way to the exchange zone. I am glad I got photos of that. 545’s for Todd on that leg is solid. I am sure it pushed Kieran as well. He handed off to Eric Ahearn. Our team did not know what place we were in for the masters.

Todd Prokop and Kieran battling during the long leg


Once Kieran cooled down we got in the car and drove along the course to the finish. Eric had moved up several places. He passed Dave Long from Wicked in the process who was on a masters team. I am not sure if he passed the AARC masters team but his strong finish put our team on top in the end by a minute and seven. Pretty close! We got the brick at the awards ceremony at the Claddagh Pub which was cool. Below are the top four masters teams. Our team finished 10th overall in the Mill Cities Relay. Full results.

Sanjay, Kieran, Eric, I, and Jason


10   207 SRR - 40'S THE NEW 20                              SRR     MM  JIM PAWLICKI         SANJAY D'SOUZA       JASON LACHAPELLE     KIERAN CONDON        ERIC AHERN           2:41:22

12     7 VAYA CON DIOS                                      AARC    MM  MIKE VEILLEUX        JAMES PORTER         MIKE PORTER          CHRIS BERNIER        CHRIS CLAPP          2:42:29

13   328 WICKED REPETITIVE                                  WRC     MM  JASON MATULEWICZ     BRETT RICKENBACH     CHRIS NOLIN          JOHN AYERS           DAVE LONG            2:42:42

21   173 NMC MASTER'S MACHINE                               NMC     MM  ED CHARTIER          KEVIN CAVANAUGH      KEN CARABBA          ART BESSE            JOSH CURTIS          2:51:01

My Mill Cities splits below. I raced almost 2 minutes slower than last year where I ran leg one with a 5:41 pace.


Kieran, Jason, Sanjay, and I