USATF National Masters XC Championships - Franklin Park

Todd Callaghan and I car pooled into Franklin Park and had the Central Mass Striders tent set up nearly 2 hours before the 10:45 start time for the 40/50 year old race. It was nice to have this race being hosted in Boston as the 2020 race was cancelled due to Covid-19. I had to show my vaccination card for the first time today. The other option was to show results of a negative test. I was competing for the CMS masters 40+ team today and was the 5th man behind Scott Leslie, Erik Johnson, Dave Dunham and Dan Verrington. Dave and Dan were declared down into the 40+ team so we could score a team. The senior team, 50+ had six runners: Greg Putnam, Tim Van Orden, Scott Grandfield, Todd Callaghan, Joe Shairs and Steve Brightman. Paul Bazanchuk was the teams lone 60+ runner on the day.

After the teams checked in 25 minutes before the start time to verify we all had the same singlet with front and back bibs, I headed out for a 13 minute warmup (1.5 miles). I jumped into a quick team photo and got onto team box # 2. The senior team was in team box #13. The starting gun went off and away the race went. I settled in and ran through mile 1 just under 6:40 and not feeling too sharp slowing down through Bear Cage Hill and losing ground to Brian Bealieau (21:33) who I was hoping to run with after he was with me half a mile in. I saw mile two around 14:15. I ended up passing one runner from there on out finishing 80th out of about 100 runners. My time was 22:30. My goal was to run a low 21 minutes. So overall, was pretty flat out there after the opening mile. The 40+ team finished 6th out of 7 teams. The senior team, placed first overall! I ran a 2 mile cool down with the team and hung out with them for the awards ceremony.  

Greg Putnam, Steve Brightman, Scott Grandfield, Todd Callaghan, Joe Shairs, Tim Van Orden

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