Run to Win

There have been 15 races so far in the Weekly Back Cove Series, which means that there are 3 weeks left to go after this evening’s race. The conditions were absolutely beautiful tonight, with clear skies, a light breeze and temperatures in the low 70s. Others must have agreed with me, because there were 109 finishers in tonight’s race.

Dan Vassallo came out to give the series a try, and in doing so he lowered Troy Hull’s 2004 record by 9 seconds to win the race in 15:39. He led 2^nd place Claton Conrad by 46 seconds.

Liz Turner also came out for the first time this year to win the women’s race in 19:22.

With none of the principal players competing tonight, the series standings remained the same at the top.

I used the race as a final tune-up workout to get some 5k race pace repeats in. I ran the first kilometer easy, the second kilometer in 3:08, the next two kilometers easy, and then ran the last kilometer plus at 3:03 pace. I felt very comfortable the whole way through and didn’t have any trouble on the repeats, so I’m hoping that I can string 5 of those together in a row this weekend and meet my goals.

(Full Results - Leader Board)

Tonight there was perfect running conditions for a good time, so it surprised me that there were still over 100 people that showed up to the starting line this evening! (Perfect running conditions for a good time to me means temperatures in the low to mid 60s and a steady helping of wind and rain. Fun to run in, but not really all that fast.)

The streak continues as 105 people crossed the finish line this evening, with at least 3 or 4 people starting out but deciding to run to the Eastern Prom beach instead of finishing. Over 615 people have run at least one of the 11 races so far this year, and 68 of them have run at least 6 of them and found their way onto the leader board (which has finally seen some changes up near the top!)

Tyler Jasud got his 5^th race of the year under his belt, but he couldn’t quite run down Claton Conrad who won the race in 15:57. Olivia Mackenzie took the women’s race in 20:22.

The start of the race had a little excitement, as Dave Weatherbie got tripped up a quarter to a half mile into the race and hit the ground hard.

David Mann (01:51:29) fell back to 4^th place, as I (01:51:28) overtook his position by 1 second and Scott Gorneau (01:44:50) took over the lead spot with his 6^th completed race.

I went back to running Tabata Intervals this week, although I programmed my watch to correctly keep me going for 4 minutes instead of just 2. Thankfully, I had somebody to do them with this week as Logan Price decided that intervals would be a good use of his time as well. I think that next time I will change the rest to the full 4 minutes and plan on doing 2 intervals instead of 3, because 2 minutes left me pretty tired and I decided to only run 2 of them anyway. We jogged for 5 or 6 minutes after the 2nd interval, and then raced through the finish where I managed to edge Logan out by half a second.

(Full Results - Leader Board)

This morning was the LL Bean 4^th of July 10k, which I have not run for the past few years. As I said back in 2005, this course is not quite flat:

Today was far and away the best running weather that I have ever had on this course. It was humid, but the temperatures never got too high and the last mile or so down Main Street did not involve thundering through the relentless sun as it usually does. There was a nice breeze and it felt pretty good.

There were 918 finishers this year, the majority of whom managed to get a free pair of New Balance 1062 running sneakers for being one of the first 500 people to register for the race. The post-race refreshments were a little meager and didn’t really last long enough, although there were enough popsicles for the kids at the end of the 1 mile fun run which is the important part.
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The Back Bay 5k now has six races under its belt, which means that the initial leader board has been announced! It is not very exciting yet, though; there is a male and a female front runner, but that is about it. Much more exciting was the blazing fast 15:56 that Claton Conrad ran this evening on what is traditionally a slow course!

Blaine Moore (who happens to be myself) leads the series with a cumulative time of 1 hour, 54 minutes, and 35 seconds. That is an average 5k time of 19:05 over the six races. This week’s 24:25 injury shuffle brought that average back by over a minute.

Emily Blazek is in second place, and is leading the women’s leader board. Her cumulative time of 2:46:53 averages out to 27:48 per race.

The leader board will be announced every week now through the end of the season in September. Each week, more runners will appear on it as they complete a minimum of six races. The position on the leader board is determined by the cumulative time of each runner’s top 6 races. The male and female leaders will each win running shoes for the year, courtesy of the Maine Running Company and Mizuno.

(Week 6 Results - Live Leader Board)

The 11^th annual Irish Road Rover was this morning in Portland, ME. The weather was absolutely beautiful. Members of Dirigo R.C. took 5 of the top 10 spots in the race, including the top 3. Not everybody registered as Dirigo, though. Claton Conrad handily won the race by over half a minute, coming through in 15:53. Todd Coffin followed him in 16:32. Erin Lane won the women’s race in 18:36.

I decided against running the race, so I took some pictures from the top of the Eastern Prom near the halfway point. I did not realize until after I had set up that the turn around was less than a quarter mile past me. I have put most of the pictures that I took online. I have labeled some of them with the name of the person, but I have not looked up everybody. If I missed you or if your number was not visible, feel free to let me know and I will update the image. If you would like a full sized copy of the image, I can accomodate that as well.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

(Complete Results - My Photos - More Photos)