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 (4th 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
| Place | Time | Average | Name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01:42:29 | 00:17:04 | Blaine Moore | |||
| 2 | 01:42:35 | 00:17:05 | Chris Gatchell | |||
| 3 | 01:43:03 | 00:17:10 | Scott Gorneau | |||
| 4 | 01:45:41 | 00:17:36 | Eric Neutz | |||
| 5 | 01:55:22 | 00:19:13 | Nick Brazier |
| Place | Time | Average | Name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 02:05:36 | 00:20:56 | Carol Fanning | |||
| 2 | 02:11:02 | 00:21:50 | Emily Hickey | |||
| 3 | 02:13:05 | 00:22:10 | Marissa Sowles | |||
| 4 | 02:24:06 | 00:24:01 | Coreen Lauren | |||
| 5 | 02:30:05 | 00:25:00 | Elania Pfaff |
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 16th (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!)
Congratulations, Blaine!
Woo hoo! Congrats! Lemme know if you need an address to send those shoes 😉
Congratulations Blaine, great to see you managed to hold on for the top spot. With a winning time of 16.37 I guess you were glad he was not your nearest competitor, that is a good time in anybody’s money. Was there age group results for the series. It never ceases to amaze me some of the times that are posted by older athletes Here in Australia the recently completed Noosa half marathon event saw the 10 k 60-69 age group winner Michael Harker run a 33.30 must be something good in the water here 🙂
Thank you!
As for age groups, the series does not do anything with them. They just publish the overall results every week, and I had to go through the standings to pick the women out of the list to get the top 5.
There is an amazing group of masters runners up here in Maine, though, so I know what you mean. One of my teammates is in his 50s and has only lost 1 minute in his 5k time over the past 30 years; it is a struggle for me to keep up with him.
Great season Blaine! Now lets break 16:00 at Eliot.
Sub-16:00 would be great. The rest is the key. You’ll have plenty of people to run with at Elliot.