Western Mass Distance Project XC Meet

By John Barbour

Congratulations to the Greater Lowellites who raced last Sunday in the second stop in the USATF-NE cross country series, the Western Mass Distance Project meet in Westfield.

Trish Bourne finished in the top half of the women’s field and kicked Heineken over all masters in 20:14 for the tough 5K course.

Ryan Gough led the way among dudes with a fine 14th-place 27:36 for 8K, with ageless Mark Reeder not far behind in 27:55 to whomp up on Seniors.  Yours truly came in at 32:08 chased by Bill Dixon in 32:34 – almost certainly the top Vet, but race-day signer-ups’ ages were not recorded, which affects team scores.  Let’s just say that GLRR won the Senior team title and leave it at that.  Which of course we did.

Upcoming Races

Manchester Marathon

Nov. 3rd in Manchester, NH.

Register online at http://www.cityofmanchestermarathon.com/, notify Glenn, and the club will reimburse you $70.  Make sure your USATF membership is up to date.

Race for Justice 

When: Saturday November 9th. Race starts at 10:30.

Where: 40 Old Ferry Road, Lowell (Lowell Elks Lodge)

Course: 5 mile out-and-back into the Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsborough State Forest. Pretty flat. Mostly on roads, with a short bit on dirt.

More info and registration: http://www.race4justice.com/

Details: t-shirts to first 250, chip timing by Yankee Timing, planning by SOAR Events, AG prizes from Mann Orchards, cash prizes for first female and male. All proceeds benefit Merrimack Valley Legal Services, providing free legal aid to those in need. 

NE Grand Prix XC Championships

October 10th at Franklin Park.

Contact John Barbour at (617) 325-1376 or mcbarbour@verizon.net.

Mill Cities Relay

The Mill Cities Relay is Dec 8th this year.

If you are interested in running, please send your First Name, Last Name, Age, Contact Email, Contact Phone #, and Average Pace for a 5K.

Please send that info to: glrrmillcities@gmail.com.

We ask that you renew your GLRR membership before signing up for the relay if you are currently not up-to-date on your dues.

More info on the relay: http://millcities.com/.

Club National XC Championships

December 14th in Bend, Oregon.

Runners who have run at least two XC races including the NE championships should contact John Barbour at (617) 325-1376 or mcbarbour@verizon.net if they're interested.

Ashworth Awards Baystate Marathon and Half Marathon

Photo by Andrea Shelton

Another Baystate Marathon is in the books!  The weather was a little windy, but otherwise perfect for the runners.  Of the 1344 marathon finishers, 335 qualified for Boston.  That's a whopping 25%.  Add in 1557 half marathon finishers and we had just under 3000 satisfied customers on the day.

Volunteers

Somewhere around 500 volunteers were assembled to make these races happen.  A heartfelt thanks to everyone who volunteered their time and energy to put this event on.  Without the volunteers the race obviously wouldn't happen -- and it takes an army for a race of this size.  A special thanks to the race committee, who devoted time all year to organize this gem of a race.  

Racers

Mary Casey-Gorman with another strong showing.
Photo by Jimmy Shelton

The Green not only helped many a runner get to the finish -- several put in great performances of their own. The Half Marathon leader board was riddled with Angry Chickens.  Steve Gendron was second overall. Candice Gagnon, Chris Hancock, Ken Cain, Lori McInerny, and Mary Casey-Gorman all placed in their respective age groups.

Sue Bourque sporting a 6 minute PR smile.
Photo by Zona Sharfman

Several GLRR competed in the Marathon as well.  Westford's Katie Schroth was 3rd female with an impressive 3:07.  Tom Peters won his age group by 6 minutes with a 3:15.  Alex Eld ran a 3:01...a 10 minute PR and BQ.  Sue Bourque cut 6 minutes off her PR after spending the previous morning on her feet at number pick-up.  A nice 'tune-up' for the Stone Cat 50 miler.

Feedback

The feedback on the race has been overwhelmingly positive.  The runners greatly appreciated all the volunteers and the organization.  One runner even pulled me aside in church to make sure I knew how well organized and friendly the event was.  She is considering joining the club due to the experience she had in her first half marathon.

Feedback on the Baystate Facebook page.

Results can be found at http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Oct20_Ashwor_set1.shtml.

Other Races in Other Places

Good Times Spring Series wrapped up June 4th

Photo by Jimmy Shelton.

By Dave Camire

Congratulations to our 2013 Good Times Spring Series Champions EJ Hrynowski of Arlington and Kara Haas of Chelmsford. It was the third overall Good Times title for both of them. They are the only threepeat champions. Kara scored a perfect 10,000 winning every series race for the third time.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Jun4_Affirm_set1.shtml

Loon Mountain Race - July 7th

Another incredible photo courtesy of Scott Mason.

EJ 'runs' Upper Walking Boss twice and the Clark family assaults the mountain on a steamy July morning.
I'd be lying if I said that looks fun.

24  E J Hrynowski   1314 50 M Arlington MA       1:00:07 11:08 

258 McKenzie Clark   107 11 F Tewksbury MA       1:38:10 18:11

265 Ken Skier       1413 59 M Lexington MA       1:40:12 18:34
268 Robert Clark     110 12 M Tewksbury MA       1:42:03 18:54
282 Riley Clark      103 9 F Tewksbury MA        1:47:19 19:53
283 Susan Clark      102 39 F Tewksbury MA       1:47:20 19:53
287 Jonathan Ring   1395 34 M Westford MA        1:47:52 19:59
301 Joseph D Ferris 1466 63 M North Billerica MA 1:55:38 21:25

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/nh/Jul7_LoonMo_set1.shtml

Good Times Summer Series

Steve and Ally winners of the Coaster Toss 5K.
Photo by Dave Labrode  

With just three weeks remaining in the series (through July 23rd) Jefferson Welch and Alisa Crueger-Cain are the leaders.  Both would be first time winners.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Jul23_Coaste_set1.shtml

Ultra Around the Lake - July 26th

Sue taking home the hardware.  Pay no attention to the tent in the background.

The Ultra Twins were at it again.  Both ran the 12 hour Ultra Around the Lake in Wakefield.  Sue was second female and Zona was fourth.  Most importantly, Sue raised a lot of money for the Roseann Sdoia Recovery Fund.  Way to go!

    6  T510 Susan Bourque            38 F WESTFORD            54.77   17 11:45:20 

   24  T584 Zona Sharfman            36 F LOWELL              42.08   13 8:54:54 

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Jul26_UltraA_set10.shtml

Yankee Homecoming 5K & 10 Miler - July 30th

Marli MOO!  Photo courtesy of Moe Garvey and Facebook.

Several GLRR made the annual Tuesday trip out to Newburyport for the Yankee Homecoming 10 Miler.  Several had strong races.

243 3067 Frank Georges       1:15:54 1:15:50 7:35  36 196/700 M 30/95   M3539 
322 1649 Maureen Pellegrini  1:18:24 1:18:19 7:50  48 75/599  F 8/79    F4549
459 344  Mary Casey-Gorman   1:21:55 1:21:49 8:11  51 124/599 F 13/52   F5054 
500 2243 Stffan Zwirek       1:23:29 1:23:13 8:20  34 362/700 M 50/82   M3034 
510 1309 Jeffrey Maistrosky  1:23:59 1:23:33 8:22  32 369/700 M 51/82   M3034 
535 1689 Marli Piccolo       1:24:09 1:23:59 8:24  43 153/599 F 24/100  F4044 
868 346  Scott Casper        1:33:48 1:33:38 9:22  45 548/700 M 81/97   M4549 
1063 85  Michael Ballerini   1:40:38 1:40:28 10:03 50 628/700 M 104/115 M5054
1131 39  Michael Andreottola 1:44:53 1:44:02 10:25 44 650/700 M 105/108 M4044

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Jul30_Yankee_set1.shtml

Carver 5M

By John Barbour

Fil once again missing the camera.  Photo courtesy of Ted Tyler.

Carver Cranberry 5M (USAT-NE Championship), Carver MA (7/27/13) –Mark Reeder and Denny LeBlanc won championships and Layce Alves broke through at Carver.  Layce’s wanted to break 18:00 for 5K all year, and after nearly breaking 30 for 5 miles at Carver that seemed a foregone conclusion.  (She did it the following Tuesday in Beverly.)  Alves streaked to a sixth-place finish to lead GLRR’s open women to a 5th-place finish out of 13 teams.  Reeder for his part held off Whirlaway’s Mike Cooney to take the Senior trophy in a superb 27:10 as that pair buried what is normally a tightly-contested division, and was the top age-graded male at 92%.  (Check out Ted Tyler’s great three-photo sequence of Mark nearing the finish on coolrunning.)

Other top age-group performances came from ageless SuperVet champion Denny LeBlanc, Kara Haas (2nd Master), and Patty Foltz (2nd Veteran).  James Sullivan’s 27:06 led the Open men to 9th place.  Other team finishes: Masters women 3rd, Masters men 7th, Senior women and men 3rd, Veteran men 4th.  USATF-NE Grand Prix team standings after 4 races: Open women 10th (27), Open men =8th (34), Masters women 2nd (24), masters men 4th (26), Senior women 4th (12), Senior men 2nd (25), Veteran men 2nd (17).

Men (31):

JAMES SULLIVAN 27:06, MARK REEDER27:10, MATT THEODOROS 27:21, ANDREW DOWNEY 27:25, CODY FREIHOFER 27:33, JUSTIN PATRONICK 29:17, E J HRYNOWSKI 29:19, JIM GARCIA 30:16, MIKE GIROUARD 30:54, MIKE HAAS 31:26, FIL FARIA 32:33, DAVID PENN 34:03, LEONARDO MEDINA 34:06, ANDRE CHANDONNET 34:29, TOM PETERS 34:52, CHIP MANN 35:41, GLENN STEWART 35:48, MICHAEL SHEEHAN 35:55, FRANK GEORGES 36:27, NICHOLAS KANARACUS 36:39, MICHAEL BRODEUR 36:48, CULLEN MADDEN 38:08, ANTONIO FEBO 38:42, DENNY LEBLANC 40:35, SCOTT CASPER  41:06, TOM FOLTZ  43:06, MATTHEW SHAPIRO 44:11, DENNIS PRICE  46:24, JON MACKENZIE   51:12, RICHARD MARAIS 54:10, RICHARD CURTIN  54:51.

Women (16):

LAYCE ALVES 30:08, KARA HAAS 31:12, ALLY MASLOWSKI 33:59, LIANE PANCOAST 35:27, BETHANY KNOETTNER 36:25, KATHY BURLEY 37:14, JULIE DRAGON 37:46, PATTY FOLTZ 37:57, MARY CASEY-GORMAN 38:26, NANCY DORN 39:24, CRISTINA GARVIN 39:41, BRYANA MCGRATH 39:54, MADELINE FEBO 40:02, MARLI PICCOLO 41:10, PAULA CANELA 47:21,  JOHANNA RILEY 55:58

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/Jul27_35thAn_set1.shtml

Hollis Fast 5K

By John Barbour

The women's start.  Courtesy of Wayne Flanagan Photography.

Hollis Fast 5K (USATF-NE Championship), Hollis NH (6/13/13) – Perfect temperatures, a light, soft rain, a gradual downhill course – what could be better?  Yet possibly the best things about the Hollis 5K were the re-emergence of GLRR’s Open teams and GLRR’s huge numerical turnout.  As good as oldie stars Mark Reeder, Trish Bourne, EJ Hrynowski, Liane Pancoast and a few others are, they’d agree that it’s long past time that they stop being Open scorers.  Speaking as a near-Veteran ourself, it was great to see so many young legs and green singlets with whom I could not match strides.  The women’s open team placed 8th of 20 and the men 10th of 21; Ryan Gough led the led the way with 14:57 as five packed within 50 seconds.  Top team and individual performances came from women Masters, Kara Haas running away another championship and the team placing a very competitive 2nd.  Senior women were 3rd led by Pancoast’s 55-59 age group win.  Masters and Senior men were 8th and 3rd; Veterans shone as Rich Molloy led GLRR’s men to 2nd, one second ahead of GMAA; he and Denny LeBlanc went 1-3 in the Super-Vets as Patty Foltz was #2 Vet woman.

Men (57):

RYAN GOUGH 14:57, MATT THEODOROS 15:33, JAMES SULLIVAN 15:36, CODY FREIHOFER 15:38, ANDREW DOWNEY 15:47, JUSTIN PATRONICK 16:08, JASON BUI 16:20, EJ HRYNOWSKI 16:41, JOE MORASSE 16:48, JOHN BARBOUR 17:03, KEVIN CARNABUCCI 17:23, ALEX ELD 17:25, KEITH O'BRIEN 17:27, FIL FARIA 17:38, JIM GARCIA 17:42, SCOTT O’BRIEN 18:03, KEN CAIN 18:05, DAVID PENN 18:32, SCOTT GRAHAM 18:36, BILL ADAMSON 19:14, ROLAND MARINELLO 19:23, JIM BURKE 19:28, MICHAEL CRYANS 19:34, KEN GOODIN 19:43, NICHOLAS KANARACUS 19:54, LEONARDO MEDINA 20:01, CHUCK FARROW 20:06, LUIS ESCOBAR 20:12, CHIP MANN 20:15, MIKE MURPHY 20:24, RONALD DESMARAIS 20:32, TOM PETERS 20:36, DAVID BURNS 20:43, ZACH HRYNOWSKI 20:47, SEAN FREDERICK 20:54, CULLEN MADDEN 20:54, TYLER BURNS 20:59, MIKE TULLY 21:16, ANTONIO FEBO 21:32, KEN SKIER 21:41, LEE FOX, 21:57, SCOTT CASPER 22:02, RICH MOLLOY 22:13, CLINTON O’BRIEN 22:24, CHRIS LOKERE 22:26, BILLY CORBETT 22:43, DENNY LEBLANC 23:05, CHRIS HONG 23:46, MATT SHAPIRO 24:32, TOM FOLTZ 24:44, MICHAEL BELLERINI 26:31, MICHAEL ANDREOTTOLA 26:56, DENNIS PRICE 27:49, JON MACKENZIE 27:58, HOWARD HERSEY 28:06, RICHARD CURTIN 28:53, JIMMY SHELTON 29:20, RICK MARAIS 31:27.

Women (21):

KARA HAAS 16:30, JILL TROTTER 19:26, KARRA CHEEVER 19:30, TRISH BOURNE 19:33,  LIANE PANCOAST 19:43, KATHY BURLEY 20:44, SUE DONOVAN 20:58, PATTY FOLTZ 21:54, MADELINE FEBO 21:58, MARY CASEY-GORMAN 22:13, MARL PICCOLO 22:15, NANCY DORN 22:17,  JOCELYN CASCIO 22:25, ANGIE ANDERSON 22:33, CINDY CAMPBELL 22:41, COLLEEN CASPER 23:18, LINDA MCCARTHY 24:29, KATE MALOWSKI 25:53, KIMBERLY ADAMSON 26:10, PAULA CANELA 26:13, LAURA BOERMAN 27:27, HAZEL PALMER 66:39.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/nh/Jun13_Hollis_set1.shtml

Predictor Workouts

By James Sullivan

The challenge in training is to figure out what is the best time to go out for at your race. You don't want to take it out too slow and underestimate your abilities, but even worse, you don't want to finish in a death march to the finish line. Finding balance is always the key. The most common workout discussed is Yasso 800s. For those who aren't familiar with Yassos, here's the theory:

10 by 800 with equal rest between intervals. Run the splits at your marathon goal time for instance 3:05 marathon would be 3:05 or 6:10 pace. Some people have success with this workout, however, most do not. The reasoning for this is the yasso workout is not a marathon specific workout. The intervals will commonly be run fairly close to your 5K/10K  pace, which may or may not have much to do with your marathon fitness. In the fall of 2012, I was running yassos at about 2:40-2:45, well before I broke 3 in the marathon. Some people are just in better shape for the 5k than they are for the marathon and visa versa.

How do we find out our fitness for our next goal race? A common method is to run a shorter race that will translate your fitness to your longer race. The theory is that your fitness will be fairly similar over multiple distances. For example, assuming you are adequately trained for both a half and a full, a half marathon is a greater indicator for a full. There are many tools online such as the McMillan Race Calculator (http://www.mcmillanrunning.com) to help you find equivalents. The key is having the volume necessary for both distances. If you run a really great half, but in the process have never run more than 14 miles, then predicting out your marathon won’t necessarily work very well. It will, however, show you potential, with proper training. Another point to add is that the longer the predictor race the more accurate the findings. 5Ks generally don’t predict nearly as well as half marathons, in predicting your marathon time. We train entirely different for these events.

An example of this is my Boston in 2013. My races leading up were 16:20 in the 5k and 1:13 in the half marathon. Many of you have heard this story, but two nights before Boston, Dave Camire bet me he could guess within a minute of what time I would run at Boston. He wrote it on a piece of paper and I didn't look at it and put it in my wallet. At Boston, I ran a 2:38:41 and Dave guessed I would run a 2:38:46. Very impressive, but kind of simple of how he determined what I would run: He knew what he ran at Boston, when he had similar 5k and half times leading up. Another example is EJ Hrynowski and his Stu's 30K indicator race. Due to the hilly nature of Stu's, EJ routinely will run the same pace at Stu's as he will at Boston (because there are no hills at Boston). With this in mind, I've heard Glenn say that many people have left their fall marathons on the Nahant 30K course. Much of this probably depends on the proximity of how close the 30K is to your fall marathon. It will be interesting to see how club member's Nahant pace stacks up against their fall marathon.

(EJ, Michael Brodeur, Ken Goodin, Mike Girouard, and Bob Croke at Stu's prior to EJ running 6:25 pace for 30k, his time at Boston this year? you guessed it. 6:25 pace)

What if you don't want to race and you specifically want to gauge fitness prior to a race? One great workout I've seen success with is 5 x 1000 at 5k Pace (200 recovery). Add up each 1000 and that is the time you should be able to run at the 5k. Bashkim Zaganjori did this workout prior to his most recent PR in the 5K. He did the intervals in 16:56, and shortly thereafter, broke 17 minutes and ran 16:58 at Good Times 5K. The 200 recovery makes this a reasonable workout, so that you can recover quickly thereafter, but its hard enough that it should tell you very close to your 5k fitness.

(Bash ran 4:31 pace for the last .1 of this race to get the oveted sub 17 he worked so hard for-Photo courtesy of Ted Tyler)

I also did this workout prior to my most recent PR in the 5k. The workout came out to be 16:03 and 4 days later I ran 15:58 at the New Balance Twilight Meet. When you do a workout like this you should feel very in control during the workout. It shouldn't feel like an all out race effort.

 Another workout I like is 7 miles run at goal half marathon pace, with a 3 mile warm up and a 3 mile cooldown. This is a fairly hard workout, and has to be built up to. Start with 4 miles at half pace and slowly add on throughout your training cycle. Every couple weeks add on to the distance run at half pace. Being able to run 7 miles at your half marathon pace with no Adrenalin, no crowd support, and no one to chase will make the first half of your race feel like a breeze. Again, you shouldn't be racing the 7 miles of the workout. Your 7 mile race time should actually be much faster, so you should feel in control.

For your folks running Lone Gull 10K or Falmouth, a good predictor workout is 2 x 6k (5 mins rest) at 10K pace. Kara Haas ran this workout leading up to the BAA 10K at 5:55 pace. The result? She ran 37:47 (in brutal conditions I might add), won her division and was 10th overall for females in a very competitive race.

(Coverglrr Kara Haas)

The key to predictor workouts is finding how much is enough that the workout will be hard enough that it will properly indicate your fitness, but it will have enough recovery built in to allow you to fully recover for your race. Race day magic takes care of the rest (Adrenalin, crowd support, people to chase, and proper rest) .