Run to Win

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)

The 1st annual Maine Coach and Athlete Cross Country Clinic was August 16^th, 2007 at Falmouth High School. This is the second of two articles summarizing the clinic. The first article mentioned each person on the panel, and summarized the first hour plus of speakers. You can read part 1 here.

This second article continues with the second half of the panel:
(Click here to continue reading…)

The 1^st annual Maine Coach and Athlete Cross Country Clinic was on August 16^th, 2007 at Falmouth High School. There were about 75 people in attendance, and the clinic lasted for about 2 and a half hours. I have split up my notes and thoughts on the clinic into two parts, the second of which will appear this afternoon.

The clinic was put together by Falmouth coach Danny Paul, and sponsored by John Rogers of the Maine Running Company. The panel brought together some of the best local (and not so local) coaches and experts to talk on various topics relating to a high school cross country coach and his/her athletes. The topics covered are also relevant to other coaches and to the athletes themselves, of course.

The panel and the (very) general topics covered were:
(Click here to continue reading…)

Next Thursday, August 16^th, there will be a free coaches clinic at Falmouth High School at 6:00 p.m. The panel will feature accomplished cross country and track coaches who will present on topics relating to cross country. Preparing for the season, injury prevention, and nutrition are just a few of the specific subjects that will be discussed.

Some of the people presenting include Bob Braman, the head coach at Florida State University and NCAA coach of the year in 2006 and 2007, Mark Lech of the University of Maine, and David Weatherbie, the coach at Cape Elizabeth High School and president of the Beach to Beacon.

You can download a printable brochure here: 2007 Coaches Clinic pdf

Dirigo running club went down to the Florida Keys this past weekend to run the Half Shells half marathon, and managed a 1-2-3 sweep.

KEY WEST — For the second consecutive year, runners from Maine dominated the Half Shell 1/2 Marathon although the change in climate was a rough transition for some.

Last year David Weatherbie, from Cape Elizabeth, was first overall and appeared to be headed for his second-straight title, but Dirigo Running Club teammate Mike Payson, from Falmouth, passed Weatherbie near the eight-mile mark on College Road and finished one-minute ahead with a 1:18:14 time to take top honors over 432 total finishers in the ninth annual event.

Peter Bottomley, also from Cape Elizabeth, made it a clean sweep with third place, running a time of 1 hour, 22 minutes and 36 seconds over the 13.1-mile course, which started and finished at Lands End Marina.

All in all, there were 9 Maine finishers in the top 50. That is not too shabby of a turn out, even without Dirigo leading the rest of the pack by almost 4 minutes.

Michelle Weiler won the women’s race in just over 90 minutes, almost 3 minutes ahead of second place Brenda Wilson.

(Sources: Race Results – KeysNews.com [registration required])