Run to Win

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!!!
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The Maine Marathoner was last weekend and was won by Dan Vassallo as he powered through to a 2:26:54 in his first marathon. He beat Byrne Decker’s course record from last year by 3 minutes; Byrne finished in 3^rd this year, 9 minutes from the front. The winning relay team was the Dirigo Masters team, who finished just ahead of 2^nd place in 2:32:39. Stephanie Crawford had a 9 minute lead on second place, winning the women’s race in 3:01:16.
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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.

The Back Cove 5k Race Series concluded tonight with some great competition. Mark Goettel led three other runners to sub-17 times in a blazing 16:37.

For the past few weeks, people have been making fun of me for worrying about who might place first in the overall series since I had a pretty comfortable lead. I knew that Scott Gorneau (4^th in 16:57) and Chris Gatchell both had a chance to catch me, and I knew that they were going to go for it. Chris came in right behind Mark to take second place in 16:39, and was only 6 seconds behind me in the overall standings with a cumulative time of 01:42:35.

Carol Fanning and myself took the series wins. Carol had a more comfortable 1 minute lead over second place than I did. We are pictured below with Colin Ingram, the New England Mizuno representative, who came to Portland from New Hampshire to present us with our gift certificates and to watch the race. The final standings are available by clicking on the picture, and the series race leaders are listed below the picture.

2007 Back Cove 5k Winners

I would like to thank everybody for coming out for the series this year. There were almost 900 runners this year who ran at least one race, and 54 runners who ran at least 6 races. There were 3 races with more than 100 people, and other than May 16^th (with 17 people) there were at least 49 people racing every week! Taken as a group, each race averaged over 73 finishers, with 1,315 people crossing the line this year.

A very special thanks needs to be given to Stu Palmer for all of the hard work that he has done making sure that the event went off without a hitch every week, and to all of the sponsors who made the race possible. That includes John Rogers of the Maine Running Company, Portland Trails, and Mizuno running shoes.

(Photo credit goes to Stu Palmer!)

The sixth back cove 5k was this evening. This 19 week series rewards the runners with the fastest 6 combined times throughout the entire series. Today was the first time that I actually raced the course, since the first one was the beginning of my taper for Vermont and I did have some recovery time after the marathon.

Mark Goettel, who works for Portland Trails, went out hard for the first mile and faded during the second. I let him take off and roped him back during the second mile. About a quarter mile later I passed him and didn’t see him again until the finish.
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