Fast Guys Plus One

Went out for a few beers tonite with the guys and ended up hanging with these guys among others. It is a tough group when you are the slug with a 14.23 5k personal best. Here we have Charlie Breagy, Mark Carroll, Geoff Smith, Keith Kelly and myself. Do i have to list their credentials, no, i didn't think so. If you haven't checked out Keith's blog, please do so, if  just for the music links, good stuff!
The link is on my blog page.

And as for those Narragansett kingers at as220, i should have stuck to the pints of Guinness.

Check out Jimmy Hirst's t-shirt, signed by a few runners. Can you decipher what it says?

First Snowshoe Run

Well, i had a good start to the new year. With all this snow yesterday, i was able to go for a run in the new snowshoes and see what kind of torture i am getting myself into, so i took a ride over to Goddard Park this morning. It was quite windy here, so trying to judge the depth of the snow was tricky. The wind cutting across Narragansett Bay left some bare spots on the ground and also 15 inch deep drifts. Anyway, off i go and i'm thinking this isn't too bad, then i hit the first deep "hole" and almost fall flat on my face, back to reality! The course goes into the woods on the horse trails where i'm trying to stay in the cross country skiers tracks because the snow was a bit deep. I will admit that i did some walking along the way, i don't know how you guys do it for long runs in deep snow, this is tough work! I survive the trails and come out into the fields (where's the Thin Lizzy music?) and head for the golf course where i know the snow depth will be better for running. It was, but now i'm running out of gas, so i see a xc skier that i can use as a target to try to beat across the field and i win. Dangle a carrot in front of me and i can get it going, all i need is a target. Almost done, i run down the par 5 fairway towards the parking lot, i come up past a woman with her dog and wouldn't you know it, misstep and faceplant. So all those opportunities to fall and i have to do it in front of one of the only persons that i see in the last hour. I must admit, it was a great fall, not as good as hitting a tree on my mountain bike, but very spectacular anyway. She looked at me like i was out of my effin' mind, but we did a good laugh out of it. Across the field i go and i am done, soaking wet and tired. As a snowshoe neophyte, i have a ways to go, but i am determined to succeed. It is one hell of a workout. It looks like the snow will hang around for a while so that i can get in some more workouts, and i need all i can get before heading up north to do some races, or should i say, survive some races :)

Now it's time to sit down with a Ruination IPA and a pizza to watch USC play Penn State in the Rose Bowl. 

Later.

S. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!

I would like to take a minute to wish a happy new year to all my faithful blog readers and my Tuesday Night Turtle teammates. Hopefully, everyone will have an even better year than last, i know i will.

First things first. I would like to say congratulations to my Turtle teammate Dave Schaad who just ran his 75th race of the year in Florida. Dave has not missed a day of running in over 4 years and in that same time, has run in 235 races. One thing about Dave, he runs every race hard, likes to play the part of the rabbit and loves every minute of it. His consistency is amazing, running most of his 5k times between 18.30 and 17.50 while winning his share of master divisions. Oh yeah...Dave is also a beer rep for Dundee's and Genesee as well as the host for the greatest Labor Day party around. Good going, Dave.



New Year, New Goals.

The new year better be better for me. This past year was just awful when it came to my running. I think that both knees are finally better and i am at a point where i actually look forward to going for a run. It has been 3 years and 10 months that i have been dealing with one knee or the other and a stress fracture that seemed to start it all off. Now i just have to build a base, lose some weight, throw in some quality training and i will be racing before you know it. Knock on wood :)

Some goals for the year:

**Running a few snowshoe races and probably making a total fool of myself in the process.

**Running Mt. Washington if i can be lucky enough to get in. If not, find some other mountain races that i won't be photographing to run.

**Cross country and trail racing if it don't kick the shit out of my knees.

Too Much Snow

 What a lousy weekend! 48+ hours of snow combined with incompetent snowplow drivers means roads that can't be run on safely. When recovering from knee problems, the last thing i want to do is get out and run on roads like these. Add in the idiot driver factor and missing a few days seems the right thing to do. I was looking forward to having my biggest week in 8 months, granted it would have only been close to 20 miles, but it is better than the zeroes i was putting up in the fall. All because of too much snow, if i wanted this much of the white stuff, i would move back to New Hampshire.

  

Now if this was next week, i would have my new Dion snowshoes and could get a workout in the snow. I am looking forward to using them and it just so happens that my buddy Martin Tighe has snowshoes too, so i will have someone to train and try a few races with. Hopefully Martin will take it easy on me, he is coming off of a 2nd place, 6:20 50 miler down at Sunmart in Texas a few weeks ago. One other Turtle, Bob Jackman has shown some interest in trying some snowshoe action, we'll see how a bunch of flatlanders do up north. Should be fun.

The photo is my summer toy with my snowblower. I would much rather be playing around with the TR6.

  

Charlies Surplus 10 Miler 1981

Hey there everyone, time for some more vintage running photos. Charlies Surplus was a great 10 mile race that attracted very high caliber fields back in the day. The course was hi-lighted by Tower Hill, which came at about 6 miles if memory serves me right, but i could be wrong. It did tend to break open the race if it was close. I don't really remember alot about this race except for the fact that i had the cover shot on Frontrunner Magazine with the photo at right with Bob Hodge and Geoff Smith. If you click on the text below, it should enlarge so that you can read the original story of the race that was in the June 1981 issue of Frontrunner Magazine, written by Don Drewniak of the Central Mass Striders. See more pictures at www.scottmasonphoto.com/gallery/6813634

Snow and Bikes

I know, it is Thursday and pouring rain outside right now. There is no snow left on the ground and it was 60 degrees yesterday, but last Sunday i went to the NBX Grand Prix of Cyclo Cross in Goddard Park, Warwick, RI to see some great bike racing in the snow and loved it. If you don't know of CycloCross, it is really just road bikes on trails with some minor modifications to the bikes. The New England CycloCross Series is a great experience, you have music blaring, announcers walking around with cordless mikes and a small, but vocal fan base watching riders do 45 -60 minute races. I wish road races could
be this enthusiastic, the fans here were hardcore, ringing cowbells or even handing out cups of beer to riders and they were taking them and downing the beer. If you ever get the chance to check out a cyclocross race, do it! These riders are into it and the atmosphere is just so electric, you can't help but get into the frame of mind of these riders. We had some great riders out there, Jamie Driscoll won the Mens Elite Race and is heading to the Nationals this weekend and Luke Keough took the under 19 age-group and seems to be a future national champion. There seems to be something about this sport that you can relate to. As a kid, you ride your bike through the woods just because, and now as an adult, you ride through the woods for the same reason. Because it is fun. What is better than That?! Do you want to see more photos? Check out this, http://www.scottmasonphoto.com/CYCLING/665999

Matty P.

Went out for a run tonite, a whopping 3 1/2 miles. The legs wanted to go, but the lungs said no. Heck of a birthday run. I really hate starting up my running from square one.  To make matters worse, i finish up at the lot just after Matt Pelletier, Patrick Moulton and Scott Bessette get done with their quick run. I'm jealous. Seems like not that many years ago i was running workouts stride for stride with Matt. I got hurt and he got faster. 

I told Matty about this photo of him from the Martini-Hicks 5k in 1996 and he said you gotta put it up, so here it is. Please excuse the quality of the picture, i did not take it, it was given to me by the guy in front of Matt in the shot. It was March 31st, 1996 and that is Mark Zartarian kicking in front of Matt. Zart ran 17.08 to Matts 17.09, Zart was 42 and Matt was 16 years old at the time. I'd say he has done quite well since then, what do ya think?

Maybe i'll be out there running with you sometime in the near future, Matt. On your easy day, of course :)

Old Running Photos

Well, tonite i started uploading some of my old race photos onto my website. I am putting them under the categorie of Vintage Running. This stuff starts in 1979 and goes through the 80's and 90's. You won't see loads of pictures like you do in today's digital age, after all, it was film and you did not want to waste anything if you didn't have to. Most of the photos are in pretty good condition, but there were some negatives that weren't handled too well over the years and it shows. I will try to label as many of the photos as possible as long as i recognize or can find results of the runners in them.

First up is the Freedom Trail Road Race in 1979 & 1980 and the Brattleboro National 50k Championship in 1980.

I hope you enjoy.

www.scottmasonphoto.com/vintagerunning