St. Patrick's Day Recovery Run 5K

Kristen and I have been reading about this race in the Lynn Item newspaper. In addition, I felt it would be a good idea to support a local race as it seems that Lynn does not have too many road races. I missed out on the Great Stew Chase 15K last month. I was pleased to see friends Solomon Tsegai, Doug Chick, and Jason Euzikonis at registration. Jay, was representing Brooks and was showing off the 2012 running shoe lineup at a table. Doug and I went out for a 10 minute warm up before lining up for the National Anthem. Mark Mayall from New Balance Boston jumped right out  right out with Nick Sousa and a high school kid. I was all alone watching the three climb up Tower Hill which took some effort. Mark took a commanding lead that he would not give up. I managed to catch the high school kid shortly after the mile where I had a 5:25 mile split. Nick was so far ahead so I tried to keep the legs turning over and keep anyone from catching me over the rest of the course which was pretty flat. I rolled into the finish line in 3rd place, 1st Lynn resident, in 17:17. Mark took the win in 16:17 and Nick ran 16:38 which was his second race of the morning. He won the Olde Salem Greens cross country race earlier edging out Mike Quintal and Dave Dunham! I did a cool down with Solomon and came back to a very long line for the food inside the Hibernian Club. The whole place was buzzing with a good vibe of food, drink, raffles and awards.

St. Patrick's Day Recovery 5K Run results - Lynn, MA March 25, 2012
Race photos by KrissyK
Lynn shows its Irish Pride at Hibernians 5K

New Bedford Half Marathon

Finishing up at the New Bedford Half Marathon

With my entry into the Boston Marathon next month, I needed to get in a long run/race. After all, I have not raced since January 1 (5 miles in Salem). So I plunked down the fifty spot a few weeks after some healthy weeks of running. The game plan was to see how 6:00 pace felt early on and play out whatever the legs cared for. Once I got over the hills early on, I had the lead vehicle for the women right at my shoulder. I found this distracting so I picked up the pace for my quickest mile split of the day (5:48). The truck and ladies went by after mile seven and found myself heading straight into the wind and losing my pace and the string of runners ahead. I faded in this stretch and by the time I got wind at my back (8.75 miles), I was spent – looking for the finish line without too many embarrassing miles ahead. In the end, I ran my slowest ½ marathon time but am not too worried as it is progress for the big picture which is to survive the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day. Kristen took several photos at 800m, 5 miles, and just after 13 miles.  

New Bedford Half Marathon

New Bedford, MA, March 18, 2012

148  JAMES PAWLICKI   37 Lynn MA  1:20:54 1:20:56  6:11 Central Mass Striders

Epic Train Trail Run Bradford to Salisbury 20 miles



20 miles and tired
Top Row L-R: Dan Verrington, Scott Mason, Todd Callaghan, Jim Pawlicki, Joe Shairs, Robert Jackman, Joe O'Leary, Dave Principe
Bottom Row L-R: Dave Dunham, Dave Lapierre, Ken Tripp, Thor Kirleis

 Dave Dunham and Dan Verrington planned out a run from Dan's house in Bradford (Haverhill) to Winner's Circle in Salisbury a few weeks ago. The course is a combination of flat roads (6 miles) and trails (14 miles) for a grand total of 20.5 miles. Here is a course map. Joe Shairs and I drove up to Winner's Circle to meet up with seven others to brave the cold morning. It was about eight degrees outside. Ten of us piled into three cars and drove down Rt. 495 to Dan's house to begin the run at 8:13. The oldest runner of our group was Scott Mason (54 years young) while Robert Jackman (29) was the youngest. They and Dave Principe drove up from Rhode Island for the festivities. Also within the pack was Todd Callaghan, Ken Tripp, and Joe O'Leary. We ran southeast along some trails and roads until we picked up the rail trail from Georgetown center. I was familiar with the trail trail that heads northeast toward Newburyport as Dave and I biked it a few years ago. It was fun to run with the group, share stories, and talk about the previous day's United States Olympic Trials Marathon (men and women). We had a water stop at 9.8 miles in Byfield where we met up with a few others such as Dave Lapierre and Thor Kirleis. The cold miles clicked by, eased by the conversation. It took us two hours and forty two minutes to reach the Winner's Circle in Salisbury. It was pretty cold so everyone wasted no time getting into our cars and dispersing. Dave Dunham took several pictures along the way that highlighted some landmarks and icey beards.

Fifth Annual Wicked Frosty Four 2012

Dan Verrington, Dave Dunham, and I after the race
in Collins Cove, Salem

January 1, 2012 - Salem, MA

I was in the midst of packing boxes for the move to the new home in Lynn. The training all week was light, as in a few days of a mere 30 minutes per day. However, the Wicked Frosty Four mile road race was an option on Sunday morning so I took a break from the move. I ran from the apartment in Beverly to the race in Salem with a bag of racing gear on my back, 2.9 miles away. This was the perfect warm up distance. I registered and chatted with Joe Shairs who was timing the race and entering the "day of" entries into the database. The weather was great for January, low 40's with some wind. Dan Verrington, Dave Dunham, and Ben Strain were representing CMS and on the starting line. Ben got a great start and I settled behind Dan. Dave was right behind me. I missed all mile splits, did not care too much, just raced along. Four guys, including Ben were in the lead for the mile. I was in the next pack behind Dan. I caught Ben and Dan heading into mile two behind the Salem Willows. Dave Dunham came up on us as we exited that neighborhood. Dan, Dave, and I worked together, shared the lead of our pack of through 3 miles. I got a few steps ahead of them with 1000m to go. I felt all right and was ready to battle if anyone pulled aside me into the last 400m. Dave Dunham did just that and as we stepped on the cobblestones on Front Street. I edged him out for the fourth place finish, 21:51, 5:28 per mile pace. I shook hands with the competitors and ran into the race headquarters, Tavern in the Square, to get some dry clothes on, pack my bag and run back to Beverly. In doing so, I caught up on the cool down with Dan and Dave and did some of the course backwards until I found a street that would get me home to continue packing.

I am in the new homestead in Lynn as I write this. I have trails 800m from the front door that Joe and I covered over the weekend. Lynn Woods are two miles away. Another two miles toward the ocean puts me in Swamscott and four miles away is Nahant. Joe and I tore up a long run on Sunday, hitting every hill we could find in Nahant (think of the Nahant 30K in September).

1 Eric Sofen 26 M SEATTLE WA 21:25 21:25 5:22
2 Nick Sousa 28 M Salem MA 21:31 21:31 5:23
3 Michael Nickerson 22 M Salem MA 21:33 21:33 5:24
4 James Pawlicki 37 M Lynn MA 21:51 21:51 5:28
5 Dave Dunham 47 M Bradford MA 21:54 21:54 5:29
6 Dan Verrington 49 M Bradford MA 21:58 21:59 5:30
7 Ben Strain 33 M Beverly MA 22:07 22:08 5:32

2012 Frosty Four full results

Boston University mini meet #1

This was the first of three mini meets hosted by Boston University. I encourage anyone to run these. There is no pressure. Put down $10 and run your race. That said, I should have stayed home. I seeded myself at 9:20 and ran 9:36, DFL in the heat. No drama, kept last place for all but maybe two laps around the 4:59 mile split. I recall putting in a surge there but to no avail. I had no energy in the last six laps and faded away. I recall 1K splits of 3:07 and 6:15 (yeah the last 1K was ugly). I had a few environmental factors that may have attributed to the dead legs but can’t dwell too much. I still feel like a chump for not meeting my seed time expectation and I looked bad on the oval finishing 10 seconds behind the race. Maybe it’s a good thing the results spelled my last name wrong: Pawlioki.

Boston Universtity mini-meet results #1 December 17, 2011

Epic North Shore Trail Run Gloucester to Beverly

An idea is born.....

I could not wait to show Todd Callaghan the trails that surrounded Beverly as soon as he moved here a year ago. Since I gave him a tour, he scoured more trails and researched a plan suggesting a run from his house to the Cape Ann Brewery via the trail network that parallels along Rt. 128. A run from Beverly to Gloucester? Why not? Afterall, over 100 mountain bike riders converge every October at the Monserrat Train Station in Beverly to ride the trails commencing at Lobstaland in Gloucester. It is referred to as the Big Kahuna. It is not advertised and is a bit of an underground event that you will not hear about unless you are in the right circles. The vision was to go through the following trail networks: Beverly Commons Trails (Witches Woods), Gordon College Woods in Wenham, Manchester Essex Woods (see Cheever Commons Conservation Area), Red Rocks Conservation in Gloucester, and finally Ravenswood in Gloucester. The "Epic North Shore Trail Run" was founded - a proposed twenty mile run with less than six of them on paved roads. The response to embark on this expedition was solid. Jonathan May, Jeffrey Silveira, Sean McDonough, Matthew Fuhrmeister, and Dan Verrington wasted no time accepting the challenge.

Man's it's cold outside......

It's Sunday morning, maybe 25 degrees outside, and the alarm wakes Krissy up at 5:30. I woke up ten minutes before, gathering inventory for the run. I bagged up two six packs of Gatorade, a few bottles of water, a dozen GU packets, assorted gels, and granola bars that would fuel us just beyond the halfway point in Manchester. I bagged up extra shirts for everyone in case they forgot to bring warm clothes for the finish. Otherwise, I had a Chico bag so that everyone could fill up with whatever they needed at the finish. Krissy followed me to Todd's house just before 6:00. Each of us drove up to Gloucester and dropped off two cars. I left some water in the car and a change of clothes. I took the rest of the inventory and the three of us headed back down Rt. 128 to Todd's with a quick detour dropping off the fluids and fuel in Manchester. It was now 6:45 and we were back at Todd's trying not to wake up his wife and daughter upstairs. Everyone started to arrive along with daylight. Ben Strain ran over from his house. My friend, Patrick Taylor (two time Big Kahuna participant) arrived to bike along. We collected outside for a photo and a few words from Todd on the expectations. We left about ten past seven from the sleepy neighborhood to the Sandy Milligan Woods. 40 minutes later, we navigated through the Beverly Commons where Todd, Dan, and Sean raced in August. While running through the trails, we are reminded how close we are to Rt 128, as we hear cars going about their speed limit to our left. Meanwhile, we respect our pacing knowing we are going to be running for 3.5 to 4 hours. The group exits onto Grapevine Road while seeing two deer. I am in the back of our pack of eight so I don't see them until a minute later crossing the street. Ben had to get home so he took a left down Hull Street and we went right into the Gordon College Campus and toward Manchester's Ancient Line trail which I was looking forward to for the first time. 

Getting your money's worth.....

We reached our at the water stop an hour later. I took two GU's and drank a Gatorade. The group was now more than half way through with our sights now toward the Red Rocks Convervation area. We reached Haskell Pond quicker than I expected and now we are running with Rt. 128 on our right and Haskell Pond to our left. The topic of conversation among the group is hiking up north and bagging 4000 ft peaks. We ran into John Gillis who was hoping would run into us. His family dropped him off about 15 minutes earlier. I was pumped to see him as he gave Todd and I a tour of this very area three weeks ago. He took us up to a scenic vista within Red Rocks overlooking the Gloucester Harbor to the right, Annisquam River in the middle, and Cranes Beach to the left. I wished I had a camera. When we climbed down from there, my hips started to tighten up. John had to turn around and head home to Manchester as we reached Rt. 133 where we had a 1.6 mile stretch of road. We took a right into Fernwood Lake for the blue dot trail which got us into Ravenswood. Ravenswood had some tricky footing but it was worth it as we took the Ledge Hill Trail with another scenic vista of Eastern Point and Gloucester Harbor. Soon we left the trails and onto New Salem Road which dumped us out at Stage Fort Park. We ran through there and wrapped up the Epic run at the Cape Ann Brewery. It was awesome to tackle this run with a great bunch of guys. I know several of us never spent that much time on our feet (running) before. After getting into some warm clothing, we heading in for some beverage and food. I was wiped out and was not looking forward to a plane ride with no leg room to Nashville four hours later. Would I do it again? Of course. I am looking forward to this again in the Spring.

Matt downloaded the GPS data here.
Distance: 22.45 miles
Time: 3:41:53

Pace: 9:53 min/mile



Jeffrey Sliveira, Patrick Taylor, Jim Pawlicki, Matt Fuhrmeister, Todd Callaghan, Jonatahan May, Sean McDonough, Ben Strain, Dan Verrington. Photo by Krissy Kozlosky



2011 Mill Cities Relay

Smiling and asking about the competion ahead

The Mill Cities relay website sums it up best - 27 miles, five legs, two states, and 1 river. The race starts in Nashua and finishes right outside the Claddagh Pub in downtown Lawrence, Massachusetts. Five person teams are compiled with distances that vary from 2.5 to 9.5 miles along the Merrimac River. I was fortunate to get on a coed open team with the Somerville Road Runners. 2011 USATF New England Mountain Series winner, Kath Hardcastle led off the charge at the 8am start in Nashua, traversing 5.4 miles to Hudson, handing off to Andy Schneider. Andy hustled 4.75 miles over the state line and into Tyngsboro handing off to Kevin Guarnotta. Kevin ran 2.5 miles along the Merrimac River into Lowell handing off to me. I covered 9.5 miles through Lowell, Dracut, and into Methuen. I handed off to recent Larissa Park who recently ran a 2:52 marathon in Philadelphia. She wasted no time over the last 4.75 miles, finding her way to Canal Street in Lawrence to help the team finish 1st over in the coed open division.

I went to sleep last night pretty nervous about the relay. I was not too sure how the logistics were going to play out for me. I was worried about getting to the start of my leg, securing warm clothing at the end of my leg, and was uncertain how to get myself to the finish. Fortunately, Todd Callaghan put me at ease this morning in Nashua and let me ride with him as we were running the same leg. Todd and I got to the start of our leg around 8am when the relay started. We were not expecting our teammates to come through our exchange zone until after 9:10. I went out for a warm up with Todd at 8:45. The clouds broke for sun as I put on my yellow SRR singlet. I wore my Nike Lunaracer 2 flats. I walked over to the exchange zone and Kevin came in to hand off the slap band to me. I took off and set my sights on the runners that were about twenty seconds ahead which included Dave Corbett, Jim Rhoades, and Joe O'Leary.

While running through Lowell with the Merrimac River on my right, I recalled memories of my 2010 Bay State Marathon where I had a tough stretch in the last four miles. I ran through the water stop taking Gatorade from Jen Arnott (formerly Jen Lavoie) with whom I went to high school with. It took me a while to catch Chris Spinney who I was tracking down for a bit. I ran beside him for a few strides checking in. He mentioned that he rolled his ankle at 2.5 miles. He hung in there and was seen two hours later icing his ankle. I felt pretty good, still on my toes, with the sun now over my rear right shoulder. The river was flowing in the same direction as the runners. Everything was good.



Larissa Park, Andy Schneider (with the brick), Kath Hardcastle, and I



I peeked at my watch at 40 minutes into my run. Then I saw John Gillis for the third time on my leg - yelling encouragement and offering water. He told me that I was getting closer to Todd Callaghan who was hurting (turned out he had a stitch that haunted him for miles). I was guessing that I had two miles left and tried to close the gap. I passed mile eight and just then realized the leg mile markers where painted in orange all along (duh!). Todd was too far ahead to reel in. I turned left into the industrial park where the exchange point was. I could see someone driving Todd's Subaru Wagon into the parking lot. I came through the exchange to handing off to Larissa. I felt good about the effort (just under 54 minutes - 5:41 / mile pace). Joe O'Leary came in behind me. My relay mates, Kevin and Andy were there so I got an update on how the SRR teams were doing. Our coed open was in 1st place for the division. They offered me a ride to the finish but I passed so that I could find Todd and get my warm clothes and dump my flats for my trainers. I let Todd out of my sights and could not find him for the next 25 minutes. The sun disappeared into the clouds and I started to get cold. I finally found Todd walking with Dave Quintal who ran with Winners Circle. Todd drove us through the last leg and to the finish line where a huge after party awaited at the Claddagh Pub off Canal Street in Lawrence. I sat down to pasta, salad, and bread while catching up with teammates and friends. Our coed team finished first in our division so we got a coveted brick as tribute to the Mill City.