Run to Win

The final installment of the 2009 Weekly Back Cove Race Series was this evening, and 113 runners came out to participate. I also got out for my 7^th race this year in the series, and my first one since I broke my foot.

Curtis Wheeler (01:42:14) brought his overall time down by almost 2 minutes with his win in 17:49 today, which left him in a solid lead for the free shoes this year.

Abbey Gosling (01:54:10) was not present this evening, but nobody even came close to beating her in the series standing.

The win for the women tonight went to Nan Lobo, who ran 20:16 and completed 2 races this season.

The community spirit award went to Craig Whiten (02:19:56), who ran all but 2 of the races this season.

For myself, tonight was the first time that I have run in 45 days. I went out a bit quicker than I needed to but quickly settled into a more appropriate pace. My foot felt fine, which is good, although I am going to come back very slow and easy so that I don’t have to worry about injuring myself again.

I have no plans for my running until January, and have canceled everything I had had scheduled for the rest of the year so I can concentrate on getting better and building back my base.

I’d like to thank Stu Palmer, John Rogers, and Diane Fournier for all the work that they do throughout the Summer to put this series on. Without them, these races couldn’t happen.

I’d also like to thank Colin Ingram and Mizuno for their support, as well as Portland Trails and the Maine Track Club.

This year, we had 2864 finishers from 1203 runners, which is over a 30% increase over 2008. There was 1 person who ran every single week, Richard Dawson (02:26:47). There were 157 people who ran 6 races and found a place on the leaderboard, which is 37 more than last year and 104 more than in 2007. 23 people ran at least 13 of the races.

I hope to see everybody again next May when the 2010 series starts! Thank you for coming out.

(More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List – Photos)

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!)