Run to Win

This week last year was filled mostly with racing news, and what wasn’t racing was related in some way to swimming.

• I offered 9 methods for counting laps in the pool. I usually use the buoys on the lane dividers.
• A revolutionary in the shotput in the early 50s, Parry O’Brien died of a heart attack this week last year while he was swimming in a masters 500m freestyle event.
• This week 2 years ago, I demonstrated how to do pushups, suggested that you ride your bike with traffic, discussed tapering for a 10k, and first learned of the Endurance 50 Challenge. I also continued my thoughts on the New Rules of Lifting with the fourteenth and fifteenth rules.

The L.L. Bean 4^th of July 10k is worth registering early for this year. The race is always competitive, is usually quite warm, and is a good way to spend the morning on our Nation’s birthday.

Plus, you might get free shoes. The first 500 runners to pre-register before May 15^th at noon get a free pair of New Balance 1062 running shoes. They also get a free technical running shirt, along with another 300 people who preregister.

I have run the race before, and I like it, but for the past few years have been making my way up to Bridgton for the 4 on the 4^th race. I like 4 milers. This year, though, I am planning on making my way back to Freeport for the L.L. Bean 10k. There is also a 1 mile fun run if you have children that is always a hoot to watch.

The race benefits the Casco Bay YMCA so that they can continue meeting their mission of never turning anyone away because of inability to pay.

You can register online at Active.com. If you are interested in volunteering on race day, you can contact Stephen Wells or leave a comment here and I’ll see that he gets it. He’s offering a volunteer’s technical t-shirt to anybody that helps set up.

I got this note in my email the other day and thought that I should pass it along:

The Portland City Council will be recognizing the tremendous accomplishment of some of our running comrades (Todd Coffin, Mike Payson, Rob Pierce, Tom Ryan, Dan Franek, Mark Goettel, Peter Bottomley, and Christine Snow-Reaser) for winning SILVER in the recent USA Cross Country meet in Ohio. The PPH failed to recognize this MASTERS TEAM for its achievement. However, we can show up at the Council meeting to pay homage to these outstanding athletes.

Anybody that is interested in cheering on the masters runners from Dirigo who did so well at the national cross country meet in December can do so tonight at 7:00 pm at the Portland City Council meeting.

Pete Bottomley wrote an excellent race report of the masters’ race if you’d like to refresh your memory about how everyone did.

The following race recap was written by Pete Bottomley, the Director of Sales & Marketing at Coast of Maine Organic Products, Inc. Pete is a masters runner for Dirigo, R.C. and competes in mostly middle distance races in Southern Maine. He ran his first marathon this past April in Boston, and this past weekend traveled out to Ohio to compete in the USATF Club Cross Country National Championships. Pete is also the race director and primary fund raiser for the New England Mile.

Dirigo splashed onto the front pages of the National running scene this past weekend at the USATF XC NATIONALS in West Chester, Ohio.

Our team was represented by Christine Reaser in the Women’s Masters and Todd Coffin, Dan Franek, Mark Goettel, Mike Payson, Rob Pierce, Tom Ryan and me in the Men’s Masters. I don’t know how to describe the course other than to say it looked like the Alaskan tundra, but more stark and the permafrost was melting! The recent 3-4 inches of slushy snow obscured the bumps and ruts in the prairie trails on which we would race the next day.

We went to bed wishing we had brought 1” spikes and hopeful that the snow would be gone by race time.

In the morning, the snow was still there and we headed over to the course telling each other that this situation was actually perfect for us Mainers!!!
(Click here to continue reading…)

The USATF Club Cross Country Championships were this morning. Peter Magill of team Fluffy Bunny won the masters’ 10k in 34:20.2, leading his team to first place with 59 points and a total time of 2:58:04.7.

Dirigo had a strong showing to improve 3 places and capture 2^nd place this year, trailing by 12 points with a 1 minute and 27.7 second deficit. Michael Payson led the way, finishing 7^th in 35:17.2.

GCS Triad (Formerly Gate City Striders, PR Racing and Moose Milers), a Maine/New Hampshire team, finished in 13^th place with 357 points in the masters 10k. They finished in 36^th place with 1088 points in the open 10k.

Christine Reaser was the lone female Dirigo competitor, and had a strong showing in the masters 6k race despite falling on a hay bale. She ran 23:15 and trailed winner Joan Nesbit Mabe by less than half of a minute.

(Results: Masters 6k - Masters 10k - Open 6k - Open 10k - Press Release)

Dirigo RC had a good showing this weekend with strong performances in the Philadelphia Marathon and the New England Cross Country Championships.

Sheri Piers and Kristin Barry both ran very strong marathons in Philadelphia, starting and finishing together in 2:45:36! They were 59^th and 60^th overall, placing 8^th and 9^th for the women’s race. There were 2726 women in the race and 6677 finishers overall. The 2008 qualifying time for the women’s Olympic Marathon Trials is 2:47:00 or better for a “B” standard, which both Sheri and Kristin made with ease! Now there will be two more great runners to cheer on in April on the day before the Boston Marathon.

Speaking of Boston, this weekend was the 2007 USATF New England Cross Country Championships. Dirigo won the Masters 8k championship race after being led by strong performances from Todd Coffin and Pete Bottomley. The men’s open team was led by Kirby Davis in the 10k.

This week last year was a busy one, with various news related posts and race results.

• The Back Cove 5k Race Series finished up, with Mike Caiazzo and Lindsey Davis taking the series honors. I won the last race, and placed 3^rd overall. This year, I bettered my average time by about a half of a minute, but none of the other top 5 ran this year other than Mark Goettel and he only ran a few of the races.
• The Portland Trails 10k was this weekend last year and was won by Mike Slinsky in 32:38, almost four minutes ahead of me. I got caught in the one place on the course that traffic could stop you by a guy with a moving trailer that wouldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Christin Doneski won the women’s race. The race this year is tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., although I am not sure how they are going to handle trail closures.
• I added on to my icing series from a few months earlier by explaining how to ice sensitive areas on your body such as your eyes or testicles.
• I reviewed Breaking Away, a movie about cyclist in the 70s.
• This week two years ago, I pointed to some resources about deadlifting, namely a video on how not to deadlift and one on proper deadlift form.
• On the news front, New Jersey began testing kids for steroids in an attempt to catch them young. I also discussed it was worth paying for your baby to be admitted to a stadium or not.

Last weekend it was too hot to use the computer and I was otherwise occupied, so I never summed up the articles from the previous year.

• The Complete Running Network was relaunched. My biggest complaint with my first impressions was that they had gotten rid of the running blog aggregater service, but that service returned a few months ago. The site held a launch contest, but they never announced who won.
• I gave some reasons that running takes practice just like any other sport in response to an article published at Complete Running.
• There were just shy of 300 finishers in the L/A Bridge Run, which I finally ran this year. Not surprisingly, Ethan Hemphill won both years.
• I found the “Athletes Against Doping” website, which contains a lot of information about what substances are banned in each sport and who the governing bodies are. They have put a new theme in place since last year.
• Two years ago, I explained what EPO was after the furor with Lance Armstrong brought it to attention. In more positive news, Kenenisa Bekele set the 10k world record with a time of 26:17.53.