Run to Win

It was another beautiful Maine evening tonight for the 17^th running of the Weekly Back Cove Race Series. This was the second to last race, and it brought 6 more people into the overall leader board which now stands at a record 114 people. There are 27 people who have run 5 races, so hopefully a large percentage of those people race next week to pad that number as much as possible.

Tonight’s race was sunny and 68° with a slight breeze. There was a lot of dry gravel dust up in the air, but conditions were very pleasant for running. Dan Franek took advantage of that, going out for the first mile with Henry Loughlin and then dropping a couple of hammers to open up a 57 second lead over the next couple of miles to win in 16:53. Molly Susla led the way for the women in 20:46.

Not surprisingly, there were no movements near the tops of the leader board. None of the top runners were around tonight to improve their times, and it is extremely unlikely that even given an Olympic level performance that anybody is going to catch the leaders.

I managed to forget to bring shorts with me to the race. I had a shirt, socks, shoes, even a hat that I didn’t wear, just no running shorts. I wound up having to stop along the way to the race and buy some basketball shorts for a couple of dollars. I kept my workout pretty easy tonight, pacing a friend through some even splits and treating it as a tempo run.

I also added a new feature this week, which allows you to see a breakdown of everybody who has run a race in the series based on the number of races that they have run. You can check it out here: http://backcove.runtowin.com/runners.php

(Full Results - Leader Board)

The Back Cove Weekly Series is now down to the final 2 weeks with the conclusion of tonight’s race. It was a rather warm 82 degrees and sunny out this evening, although it cooled off fast as the sun went down after the race. The air was pretty dry, which led to a lot of stone dust getting kicked up on the trail, even by the dogs that were trotting along.

The University of Southern Maine sent it’s entire compliment of runners to the race this evening, which led to a much larger field up front than we usually see. There were 7 people under 17 minutes, and over 30 people under 19 minutes. They should send those guys out more often during the Summer, is my thinking! Tonight’s race had 123 finishers total.

Tyler Jasud (01:39:33) finished right behind Dan Franek, both clocking 16:22. As far as I can tell, 3 of the top 10 were Dirigo runners and the rest were USM runners.

The field was so deep tonight that it pushed the first place woman back to 49^th place. Lauren Lohmeyer won the race in 21:22, 62 seconds ahead of Carol Fanning.

There was not a whole lot of movement at the top of the leader board this week, and I don’t expect there to be for the rest of the season. There were 5 new additions to the board, bringing the total number of runners who have competed in at least 6 of the races to 109.

I was running a little late getting out of work since I wanted to finish what I was working on, but that didn’t leave me much time to get to the starting line. I went out at a warm up pace for a short time, but my warmup basically turned into a tempo run as I got to the Back Cove about 6 minutes faster than usual. I didn’t think it would be worth running intervals as a result and just extended the tempo run to 8 miles to include the race. With all of the USM runners, though, it would have been a great night to do intervals and have people to chase.

(Full Results - Leader Board)

The Weekly Back Cove Race Series has begun, and is back and better than ever. The series works much in the same way that it has in years past, with a 5 kilometer race every Wednesday evening along the Back Cove path in Portland, Maine at 6:00. The races will run for 19 weeks between May 14^th, 2008 and September 10^th, 2008. The race is free of charge, and you only need to register for the first race of the year that you run. Remember to keep your bib number, though, as you will use the same one every week.

Your top 6 times from the 19 week series will be added together to get a cumulative time, with the best male and female runner winning free shoes for a year from Mizuno. There will also be a new award this year, the Maine Track Club Running Community Spirit award for the individual(s) who best represent the community spirit of the Back Cove race series.

The website has a brand new face this year, which you can see by visiting:
http://backcove.runtowin.com/index.php

Each week the latest results will be displayed on the website, and as the series goes on there will be new features added in to let you see exactly what is happening with all of your favorite runners. There is also a race map now available, which you can view at:
http://backcove.runtowin.com/map.php

Here is a copy of the map with the mile markers shown:

Much like last year, the weather was absolutely beautiful for the first week of the race. Unlike last year, however, there were more than twice as many runners finishing the race! Last year’s first week total only came to 54 runners, but 109 people crossed the line this week. The average number of people to cross the line last year was only 79 runners, and there were only 3 weeks where there were more than 100 runners, so this year looks like it is going to be another record breaking year for the series.

In a repeat showing of last year, Dan Franek set the mark early with a win in tonight’s race with a time of 17:21. Katie Davisson was the first woman to finish this year with a time 19:44.

I hope that you can make it out there this year at least once, if not the 6 times necessary to score in the grand prix. For myself, I hope to make it each week. For the past 2 years I have made it to all of the races except for 1 each year, first because I was on my honeymoon and then because I was at a conference in Texas.

(Photo Credit: Don Penta)

The 2008 running of the Irish Road Rover 5k was this morning in relatively warm but very windy conditions. The team competition was broken into 3 separate types of teams, club teams, open teams and corporate teams.

(Click here to continue reading…)

Spectators at this year’s Boston Indoor Games got to see some more records set, continuing last year’s trend. Meseret Defar took the spotlight, leading Kim Smith into a world record pace in the 2 mile with a time of 9:13.94. The former indoor world record of 9:23.8 was set at the 2002 Boston Indoor Games, and Smith watched Defar cross the line in 9:10.5. “It’s nice to beat a World record (best),” said Smith, “it’s only too bad that Meseret was there first.”

Craig Mottram also had a good day. He broke the American soil record in the 3000 meter by almost a second after he ran 7:34.5, which also lowered the Australian national record. “It was a good time, and I’m happy with it. I’m running as well as I’ve ever done, in about the same shape as I was this time last year. I just need to keep a lid on things, keep turning the screws, and keep getting ready for Beijing.”

Local runners Dan Franek and Pete Bottomley competed in the Masters’ Mile to open the meet up. Both men run for my team, Dirigo Running Club. Dan Franek came in 2^nd place with a time of 4:31.37, and Pete Bottomley was 8^th with a time of 4:40.81.

The Boston Indoor Games is the second of five meets in the indoor Visa Championship Series.

(Sources: 2008 Results - USATF - IAAF)

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 9^th annual Kerryman Pub Road Race and Mary’s Walk were today in Saco, Maine. Ethan Hemphill and Timothy Rider both broke last year’s record setting pace by over 10 seconds; Ethan won by 2 seconds in 15:23. That ain’t walking, especially this early in the season. Kristin Barry won by almost a minute in 17:52, followed by Christine Reaser in 18:41 and Abby Iselborn in 19:16. Lynne Mooney and Dan Franek won the master’s races. There were a total of 660 finishers.

(Full Results - Race Photos - More Photos)