The Weekly Back Cove Race Series has now drawn to a close for 2008 with an absolute gorgeous evening with perfect running conditions.

Temperatures were in the high 60s with a light breeze. A total of 878 people ran across the finish line 2,192 times for an average of over 121 people per race. Only twice did the number of finishers dip below 100, with 97 finishers in week 4 and 88 finishers tonight.

Scott Gorneau (01:42:13) led the way, beating Phil Dirusso (01:47:34) by 43 seconds to win the race in 17:03.

Heather Pagano (01:52:40) ran uncontested in the women’s race, winning in 19:05. She also cemented her series win, bringing her overall time down by 22 seconds and winning by just shy of 10 minutes. She is pictured above with Mizuno representative Colin Ingram and community spirit award winner Michael Beaudoin (02:20:47). Michael has been running in the series from the very beginning, including 16 of the races this year. Tyler Jasud (01:39:33) maintained his lead to win the series on the men’s side, despite not running this week.

I was the only person to run all 18 races this year, marking the first year that I didn’t miss a race, and also marking the first year that I was actually on time to every race since I began running in this series. My total time this year was 06:13:00 for an average of 20:43 for each 5k, with a 4^th place finish in the standings with a time of 01:47:02, about 5 minutes slower than last year.

Last year, I was the only person to run over 13 races. This year, 11 people including myself ran at least 14 races in the series. I’d like to thank everybody for coming out this year and making the series a resounding success, and I’m looking forward to the 2009 series where we can hopefully grow it even more!

(Full Results – Leader Board – Runner’s List)