Run to Win

Last night was the Maine Track Club annual banquet, celebrating the club’s 30^th birthday. The evening was a lot of fun, with plenty of folks attending, plenty of good food, plenty of door prizes, and a plethora of awards.

The club honored it’s founder, Brian “Ziggy” Gillespie (who was the coach for “Run to Win” when I first moved to Maine and provided the inspiration for this site’s name) for his contributions to Maine running since the 1960s. Ziggy is (as far as I know) the only person that appears in both the Maine Running Hall of Fame as well as the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame. He has coached numerous successful teams throughout the years, put on more races than I could count, and helped make the Maine Track Club what it is today when he started it back in the 1970s.

The table that I was sitting at did pretty well with the awards. We had two folks win gift certificates as door prizes, we had 3 age group awards (myself, Floyd Lavery, and Amy Lilley), I won the Outstanding Contributions award, Martha Lippa received recognition for having run her first marathon, and Carry Buterbaugh won Runner of the Year.

I’d also like to mention the two volunteers of the year, David Colby Young and Don Penta, who do an outstanding job photographing the majority of the races throughout the state. It did make things a little interesting while they were receiving their awards, though, as the folks who had the cameras handed to them then had to figure out how to use them.

David took video of the evening and has a few photographs up on his site, Maine Running Photos.com. Don’s photos will probably appear on the site within the next week or two.

The 3^rd Weekly Back Cove race was this evening, and for the first time this year I picked up the pace a little. And by a little, I mean by about 10 minutes.

I donated my $40 to Portland Trails for a pair of the t-shirts. It is the first t-shirt I’ve had that has had my new logo on the back (which you can also see in the banner to the right.)

The goal for me this week was to run even 4:00/km splits. I went out a little quick though (3:29/km) so I decided to just keep that 3:30/km pace throughout the race. I succeeded at that, at least. Chris Harmon took the lead today, cruising to an easy win in 17:03.

The results are online on the website at: http://backcove.runtowin.com/

I have also included links in the results from week 1 and week 2 to the pictures that were taken by Don Penta at the races.

(Photo Credit: Don Penta)

Don Penta and David Colby Young’s photos and videos are now all online for this year’s Safe Passage 5k.

You can view them over at Maine Running Photos.

Here are the links:

• Photo Set 1: Pre-Race & Starting Line
• Photo Set 2: Finish Line (First Half)
• Photo Set 3: Finish Line (Second Half)
• Video 1: Interviews & Starting Line
• Video 2: Awards Ceremony

As mentioned earlier, you can also preview Beth Rand’s photographs of the race if you are interested in purchasing any of the ones that she has taken.

(Photo Credit: Don Penta)

This past weekend was the Cape Elizabeth Mid-Winter 10 Mile Classic, which I wrote about previously. As is usually the case when there is a race in Maine, the Maine Track Club has a collection of photos for your viewing pleasure courtesy of David Colby Young’s website.

Here are the photographers who contributed pictures:

1. David Colby Young
2. Lisa Despres
3. Beth Rand
4. Don Penta

Dean Karnazes ran the Maine Marathon leg of his 50 marathons on October 17^th. Don Penta was there taking photographs, which you can see over at Maine Running Photos. If you look in pictures 22 and 76, you can see me in the background or off to the left side at the beginning and starts of the race.

That looked like a lot of fun. I am going a little crazy with this taper so I am looking forward to running my marathon in a week. Raking leaves the last two evenings has left me with too much energy afterwards.

Don Penta has pictures of the Beach to Beacon finish line available over at David Colby Young’s web journal. The pictures begin around 37 minutes into the race, and include the awards ceremony. In total, there are 660 pictures.

The official pictures from the race have not been released yet.

Update: Official Beach to Beacon photos