USATF 2016 National Club Cross Country Championships

Todd Callaghan planted the seed in August. “We have to get a team down to XC Nationals.” Six masters runners from the Central Mass Striders including myself committed to the December 10^th race in Tallahassee, FL. Todd, Joe Shairs, Greg Putnam, and I touched down in Tallahassee the day before the race. Arthur Besse was already in Florida with his family in Jacksonville. Tim Van Orden was on his way via Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Our hotel shuttle driver, a local student, hit it off real well with us tipping us what to check out and what to avoid in terms of pub and grub.  We got a little history of the local academia (Florida State University, Florida Community College, Florida A&M University).

Voted best burgers in town?

We checked into the Four Points, welcomed by the USATF race promotion and schedule of events in the lobby. We got a shuttle in a five passenger golf cart up to the race HQ hotel about a mile away to get our race numbers. The driver smiled when I asked he ever had the thing on two wheels before? Once we were back at our hotel, we hit up Birds Aphrodisiac OysterShack next door, because it was steps away and our shuttle driver claimed the best burgers in town. Oysters mean burgers in Tallahassee…..dozens of Oysters were followed by burgers or Grouper sandwiches. Tim arrived after dinner after a 2.5 hour drive from Jacksonville.

Greg up front in the Golf Cart limmo yelling at the snow birds driving in Tallahassee

Joe questioning the "texting while driving permission" golf cart law in Florida

The following day arrived. A light breakfast of coffee and oatmeal fueled the morning. The Apalachee Regional Park Cross Country course was a 20 minute drive away. Tim drove us over and we settled our bags into a huge party tent about a half mile from the start. It was chilly but the temperatures got up to the high 40’s by the time our 10K race started.  We were unable to warm up on the course so we ran back and forth along the start and finish areas while watching the masters women 6K and masters men 8K (60+) races.

Raw Oysters before a race is always a good idea

It was thrilling to watch John Barbour (GLRR) duke it out stride for stride, sharing the lead with Brian Pilcher from California. John would come up short by a few strides in the end. His age grade effort was the best of the day for the 8K. We checked in as team and got onto the course minutes before our 9:45 start. Just enough time to do a few strides and our Jameis Winston crab leg chant.

The race took off, down a good wide stretch that was sure to thin out the mass of 190 runners.

Hats and gloves in Tallahassee
CMS masters team: Todd Callaghan, Jim Pawlicki, Tim Van Orden, Joe Shairs, Arthur Besse, Greg Putnam

We had four loops waiting with something called “the wall.” It was a two stage hill with the 2^nd being a steeper stride breaker. I glued onto Arthur Besse as soon as I could for company. The course rolled and swung us past the finish line area several times making this a great course for photographers and spectators.

I hung with Arthur for about 3.25 miles before fading like a Florida Oak tree. The 5K split was around 17:45. Arthur kept pace and passed several over the next few miles. I battled out with a few other guys in fade mode. One guy with a backwards facing hat got some cheer support. “Red,” Matthew Whitis’ presence and local pace kept me going in an otherwise dismal wrap up. Read about Matthew and his second chance.  I finished up in 74^th place (6^th man on the team) with a time of 36:28 (5:53 pace per mile). Arthur finished in 35:50 and 64^th place.

Several loops at Apalachee resemble a whale

The team placed 7^th out of 16 teams, just 3 behind Cal Coast and 7 behind Bull City TC. In order: Tim Van Orden, Greg Putnam, Todd Callaghan, Joe Shairs, Arthur Besse, & I.

40+ results 

40+ team results

Tim reaching for an Orange

We ran a cool down in some loops away from the course and then came back to watch the end of the women’s and men’s open races where Melissa Donais and Nate Jenkins represented CMS well. The rest of the day consisted of hanging out with the team at the hotel pool, round number two at Bird’s (yes more Oysters!), and then shuttled downtown for the after party in College Town. We bumped elbows with teams and runners from our USATF New England Region as well as from other USATF regions. Get ready for 2017 in Kentucky!

Please check out Greg Putnam’s recap of the end to end CMS trip to Tallahassee on LevelRenner. 

USATF National Masters 5K Championship Saratoga Springs, NY

Saratoga Springs, New York was hosting the USATF National Masters 5K Cross Country Championship. I was game for the 3 hour drive as long as CMS could score a team of five men. Fortunately, we got a tremendous amount of fast masters for this one in advance so the decision was easy to sign up last month. The 40 plus age group (40-49) team on the line for CMS is no particular order: Gregory Putnam, Joe Shairs, Alan Bernier, Joshua Perks, Ben Nephew, Tim Van Orden, and myself. We also expected to have Dave Dunham, Paul Bazanchuk, and John Griego in the 50 and 60 age group races.

Logistics was easy as Gregory drove Joe and I to Saratoga on Saturday afternoon. It was a pleasant drive with the autumn scenery along the Mass Pike. We pulled into Saratoga Spa - which is like a huge state park similar to Bradley Palmer State Park, however with a lot more buildings and plenty of parking to host sporting events and a golf course. We changed into our running gear and previewed the 5K cross country course. The smell of cross country racing was in the air while the high school races, families, and coaches littered all over the park and fields. My memories of racing (and my first win on showshoes) the course in 2004 came back. I was so excited for the race the next morning.

Team getting the award

Joe and I ran behind a high school boys race to make sure we navigated along the course correctly, although, white arrows on the ground were simple guides. It was a fair course with good footing on carriage roads, light pine needle trails, and some hills to take the wind out of any momentum. I recall we ran through a few minutes of frozen rain (hail) as temps were rather chilly. As we finished the course, we bumped into Alan and Dave Dunham so I ran the course again with them. We determined with the course being about 3 miles long, we could run the course as fast as we could for a fast road 5K (Hollis 5K excluded). My excitement had to wait until Sunday morning.

After checking in at the host hotel, we picked up our race packets and headed out into downtown Saratoga for dinner. I either disgusted our table or impressed by downing two slices of pizza after throwing down a healthy sized Burrito. I will say that the downtown was very nice for dining, shopping, and had a good vibe to it.

Fast forward to the next morning, after a decent breakfast, we had a short five minute drive to the race. We began to greet the teammates coming in. It was nice to see Joshua and Ben ready to rock as they both have roots in the state of New York. After a check in with race officials to confirm we all had the same singlet and race bibs front and back, we got on the line ready to roll in the National Championship. The race went off and I got in behind Joe, Joshua, and Ben for the first half mile. It was frantic but controlled. Greg, Tim, and Alan were up front mixing it up. We had a good team here and I was confident we were going to do well as it seemed our seven were in the top 20.

We began to run into some hail and that added to the fast furry of the race. Everything went by so quick. The mile passed by in what I heard as a 5:21, running next to Ben and Joe. Joshua started to pull away smartly and quietly in mile 2. The hail stopped and we hit the valley again and could see the front of the race on the other side of the creek. The boys were taking care of business up front while Joe, Ben, and I were fighting for the 5th scoring spot on the team. I would occasionally hear that our place was around 15th place or so overall. I took a lead over Ben and Joe up a hill into mile 2 (hearing 10:56). Joe encouraged me to take off but my legs went flat soon after in the trails heading back to the long straight finish. Ben took charge in the last 600m with a strong finish to score as the 5th CMS runner. Joe and I followed breaking 17 minutes which was my goal. My official time was 16:53 and placed 14th out of 52 runners. The team, led by Gregory, took the following places for runners on teams that had five scoring member: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. Our combined score of 24 points bested 2nd place Atlanta Track Club who had 43 points. It was nice to take the team championship but even better to be racing with a great bunch of teammates. We hung out for the awards which was held in the on site Automobile Museum. I wish I had more time to go through it but we had to hit the road. 40+ results

mile splits per GPS
5:29
5:55
5:41

1.    24  Central Mass Striders M40                (  16:26  1:22:09   0:44)
=======================================================
  1      2    796 4 Greg Putnam         45 Stoneham   16:02
  2      3    863 6 Tim Van Orden       47 Bennington   16:18
  3      5    789 13 Joshua Perks        41 North Andover   16:30
  4      6    610 14 Alan Bernier        41 Braintree   16:33
  5      8    770 18 Ben Nephew          40 Mansfield   16:46
  6   (  9)   787 19 James Pawlicki      41 Lynn   16:53
  7   ( 10)   829 20 Joe Shairs          47 Peabody   16:56

USATF Club Cross Country Nationals

Goofing off before the race

I put the word out to the Central Mass Striders racing team several months ago hoping to get interest in the USATF Club Cross Country Nationals race in Bethlehem, PA - Lehigh University. I was thrilled to get a masters and a senior team. We had  eleven in total willing to make the road trip which is about five and a half hours away. USATF New England offered a bus for which I took advantage of. I met up with Martin Tighe, Joe Shairs, Todd Callaghan, and John Gillis for a 7:00 departure in Woburn. The bus had 16 athletes from CMS, Greater Lowell Road Runners, Whirlaway, and Liberty. We dashed over to Westwood to pick up the rest of our passengers that made up Greater Boston Track Club, Hurtin for Certain, and a few more GLRR members. We were also joined by Bob Fitzgerald of New England Runner. I sat with Martin and among the CMS guys in the middle of the bus. We talked with everyone around us and had some great conversation catching up with Mark Reeder, Paul Hammond, and John Barbour. Otherwise, I listened to my iPod or closed my eyes for some light rest. We got to the host hotel around 2:00, allowed people to check in, and folks like myself to change into running clothes. We gathered back onto the bus and drove over to the xc course to preview it. We met up with the rest of the CMS crew breifly - Dave Dunham, Paul Bazanchuk, Dave Lapierre, and Dan Verrington as they were just about to leave. I saw about six miles of the course. The course layout was easy to figure out based on the map I saw earlier in the week. It was wide open fields and paths around the stadium and corn fields. It was a two loop course that was perfect for spectators and easy on the runners aside from a few hills that were not steep as much as they were long enough to slow it down. However, we thought the course was going to be fast. There was some mud at 1.1K and a little here and there at turns but overall the footing was good. I brought spikes and flats. I went with the flats for race day.

Warming up past mile 1

The bus driver was awesome to drop the CMS guys at our hotel which was only 2 miles away from the course and 16 miles from the host hotel. We checked in, showered, and headed off in the two cars that the Senior team had and over to Bella for a nice Italian dinner down the street. We dropped everyone off back at the hotel while Dave Dunham and I headed north to the host hotel to pick up our race number packets and attend the suggested technical meeting for our team. This was the first race I had entered that required back bibs indicating the age group. This is a good idea so you know the age group of the men ahead of you in the race. As soon as I found the starting line box assignment, we left. The Senior team had box 53 and our masters team had box 69 making Rob Gronkowski of the Patriots proud.

The team had breakfast in our hotel. It was cool to see other teams huddled around tables in their team gear. I was the last one to attend breakfast - grabbing some oatmeal, coffee, and yogurt. We got into the cars and headed over to the race at 9:30. Our race started at 11:30. There was plenty of parking when we arrived. Just as we got out of our cars, I saw Al Bernier arrive. We had exactly five 40+ men to make up our masters team. We had five 50+ guys and Paul Bazanchuk (60) but scoring down into the Senior team. We put our racing bags down on a tarp behind the starting line and camped out. Some teams went all out with tents on the other side of the stadium a half mile away. I did my own warm up after we got checked in 30 minutes before our start. The USATF official (clerk) was ensuring we and all other teams had the same style singlet, numbers pinned front and back, and chip secured onto our racing shoes. We were only allowed to have four men in the front box at the starting line so I took the box behind Greg, Todd, Al, and Joe. A field of almost 600 masters runners were soon taking off for the massive start. The course narrowed in about 500 meters away and I kept an eye on Joe and Al who were a few seconds ahead. I went to the right of the muddy spot at 1.1K. Most people went left or through the middle where it looked the slowest. I was next to Martin through mile one, going up an incline. I mentioned our 5:38 mile that I saw on my Garmin. Mark Reeder pulled beside at mile two and I tried my best to stay with him but lost him after mile 2 going down a hill past the stadium. The course was such that you could look ahead and see 400 meters at a time so I could make out my CMS guys ahead. Al seemed to be reeling in Joe and I could see Todd ahead of him. I battled tough in that first full loop and knew lap two was going to be tough with the same hills. The effort got hard in the 2nd loop. I couldn't wait to reach the last hill and open up over the last 2K. Well it looked like every guy around me was thinking the same thing. They were so strong and it did not matter what age. I think I only had one or two guys pass me in that stretch but will say that no one was willing to give an inch. This was cross country nationals. I ran as hard as possible up into inclined finish - scoring as our 5th man. I placed 95th with a time of 35:42.  

photo by Michael Scott

We all changed into some warm clothing and watched the next few races that started each hour. I settled for watching the women's open race and taking a few pictures instead of warming down. I also got my luggage from Paul's truck and into the Bus as we changed our plans and booked rooms at the host hotel. This eased our logistics for the rest of the weekend. Some guys left to head back to New England while the bus crew hung out and watched the rest of the races. The men's open race was particularly awesome to watch as the lead pack was huge for 2/3's of the race only to thin out at the end. It was so exciting to also see the women's race develop as I was rooting for the BAA ladies to take the team title which they did. The races were over and it was time to clean up and enjoy the rest of the events (happy hour, food, awards, et cetera) the race event had planned at the host hotel. Joe, Al, Martin, John, and I caught up with competitors and friends.

photo by Jill Forsythe

We got up early the following morning for a run. We met up with Kevin O'Neal from the BAA before heading back for the rest of his teammates. I took them through some quiet roads behind the hotel long enough until the CMS crew had to get back for breakfast and take our bus back to Boston. It was a great weekend and glad that we had the guys on board to pull this off. I was proud of the guys as I saw unofficial team results showing that we placed 9th as of Saturday night at the host hotel. Our Senior team finished 11th per those same team results, however, we were told the results may change because some age groups needed to be sorted out.

Unofficial Masters Results

Race photos by Jill Forsythe

Race photos by Michael Scott

By the numbers

539

536

555

533

556

548

119 (0.25) 

35:47