Run to Win

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)

Week 14 of the Back Cove Series was yesterday evening, which means that there are now 4 races left until the end. The weather was absolutely beautiful with a light breeze, sunny skies, and temperatures in the mid 70s.

The race went out very fast, with Tyler Jasud (01:40:37) and Noah Schonenberg leading the way with a blazing fast sub-5:00 first mile. Noah fell off the pace within a quarter mile after that, but Tyler maintained the front position for the entire race to cross the line first in 16:38.

Scott Gorneau (01:43:43) used his 17:05 finish to bring his series time down by over a minute, but Tyler still has over a 3 minute lead on him. Fortunately for Scott, Tyler is still in school and isn’t eligible to win the shoes.

Heather Pagano (01:53:02) won the women’s race in 18:45 for 9^th place overall. Not only did she finish in 9^th, but this was her 6^th race so she jumped straight onto the leader board in 9^th overall with an almost 11 minute lead over Katie Davisson (02:04:00).

I ran hard during the race, working my way up to 2^nd for most of the run. I would have had to work harder than I was willing to to catch Tyler, though, and Scott overtook me with a little less than 2k to go and beat me handily by 5 seconds. My series time did drop by over 2 minutes, which moved me into 4^th place overall. I don’t expect to race or run any more of them as anything but interval workouts, so I don’t expect to improve too much going forward this year.

(Full Results – Leader Board – Photos)

Week 13 of the Back Cove Racing Series was this evening, which means that if you haven’t run yet then you will not be able to get onto the leader board. Who is going to win the free shoes for a year? Every week now people will start falling off of the list of people who might possibly jump out from nowhere near the top of the standings, and the people there now will be fighting to improve their positions.

There were 123 people who came out this evening, despite the wet weather that mostly held off during the majority of the run. Stan Pyle broke out his trusty green cross country spikes this evening to help lend himself some traction on the wet gravel, and it must have worked because he blew the competition away by almost a minute with his 15:53 finish. Stan will need to run 4 of the remaining 5 races in order to qualify for the free running shoes for a year.

Scott Gorneau (01:44:50) was again absent this week, which cost him his lead position in the standings as Tyler Jasud (01:41:51) made a debut on the leader board with a solid lead of 3 minutes.

A similar story was found on the women’s side this evening, as Katie Davisson (02:04:00) also completed her sixth race and took over the lead position in the standings.

For myself, I improved my time on the leader board but not my position. Today was an interval day, running 3 by 1 kilometer repeats with a kilometer running recovery between each. There were plenty of people to chase on the second two repeats, which helped to keep me honest as I ran 2:58, 3:15 and 3:08 for a 3:07 average. I was aiming for anything below a 3:12 average for the 3 repeats, although I would have preferred that all 3 actually be below 3:12.

(Full Results – Leader Board)

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)

I’ll admit it. Having never met Curtis Wheeler before, and seeing the pace he set from the very beginning, I fully expected him to blow up within a half mile and fall back to the crowd. Of course, I didn’t find out who he was until after the race, or else I would have known better.

Curtis beat everybody else by over a minute, so he must have taken it a little easy at some point. He was a good 25 to 30 seconds ahead of the chase pack at the first mile. I finally got to meet Tyler Jasud during the race, since he kept catching up to me during my rest intervals and eventually pulled ahead. We had a nice race through to the finish, but he had the stronger kick and edged me out at the line. Well done!
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It was rather humid tonight, although it was ideal running weather otherwise. There are now only 10 races left in this year’s Back Cove race series, and the 150 finishers this evening brought the total number of runners to have run at least 6 races so far to 47.

Tyler Jasud and Heather Pagano led the way, finishing the race in 17:26 and 18:48 (respectively.)

The two Davids (Manz and Mann) are still leading the overall leaderboard. I’ve moved up two places from 9^th to 7^th overall. Similarly to last week, I ran easy and turned into a 20+ kilometer run coupled with a run earlier in the day that brings me over 20 miles total.

(Full Results – Leader Board)

Week 7 is now in the books, with almost 160 runners finishing on a warm, sunny day in the mid-70s. These huge crowds are very exciting to see week after week. There are now 37 runners who have run at least 6 of the races, building the leaderboard over half again from last week’s 22.

Stan Pyle led the way this week, winning the race in a (for him) pedestrian 16:41. Tyler Jasud was 15 seconds behind him.

Heather Pagano followed up her performance from 2 weeks ago with a new women’s course record of 18:40! Way to go, Heather! Her season seems to be ramping up very quickly.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Week 6 of the Back Cove Weekly Race Series was met with a light breeze, no clouds, and temperatures in the mid-60s. There were 145 runners out this evening to take part in the race. The popularity of the series this year is very evident, as every week there has been at least 100 runners and of those hundreds of finishers over the past 6 weeks, 22 of them have run all six races. Last year, there were only 2 runners to complete the first 6 races. This is by far the largest initial leader board in the race series’ history.

The race itself was led by series newcomer Tyler Jasud in 16:33, almost 30 seconds ahead of 2^nd place.

Dave Manz (01:50:23) and David Mann (01:52:55) both ran well and have managed to place themselves atop the leader board. You have to go back a full 5 minutes in cumulative time for the first 6 races in order to find 3^rd place.

The leader board is only going to get larger from here on out as new runners complete their 6^th race so that they can appear in the standings, and as existing runners finish in faster times and have their slowest races drop off. If you are curious about how well you are doing, then just find your name in the results and click on it and you can see your full race history and how each race affects your cumulative and average times.

(Full Results – Leader Board – Photos)