Boston Marathon Photos

Went up to the Boston Marathon on Monday to spectate and take some pictures.

See the photos here. 

The shots were taken at 5.5 and 19.8 miles.

Into the Light

 I shot a lot of photos this past weekend between the Merrimack River Trail Race and the Doyle's Emerald Necklace 5 Miler. I think this is my favorite, shot at the Doyle's 5m.


Photos from Merrimack here.


Photos from Doyle's here. 

Nike Hairs

I just came across this tonite while going through some old running stuff. Years ago, my brother got Don Bousquet to sign one of his cartoons for me. Don is from RI and did stuff in the local papers and Yankee Magazine. He obviously was overstating on my marathon abilities. In my opinion anyway, but i guess i was my own worst critic.

Granite State Snowshoe Finale

  You had to wonder if it really that good of an idea to head up to the Granite State Snowshoe Championship. Here in Rhode Island, the winds were gusting to over 30mph and the rain was coming down sideways. The clocks "sprang" ahead the night before, so you are somewhat sleep deprived for the 6 am departure time AND you have a 4 hour drive in front of you. Sounds like the perfect morning to sleep in.....NOT! Actually, i had no intentions of missing the final race of the season and then towards the end of the week, Dave Principe confirmed he was going too. Now i did not have to go up solo which made it much easier. Dave's son, DJ came along too, as we hydroplaned our way to Great Glen. I think Dave was getting a bit nervous as we hit the halfway point in Portsmouth and it was still raining heavily. Three hours in and still raining, we get into North Conway and wonder where is the snow. As we gained elevation heading towards Pinkham Notch, the wet roads slowly turned to slick, sloppy roads which caused a hairy moment or two in the last few miles (see Ryan Triffitts blog).  Once we arrived, there was plenty of snow and more coming down.

I was not running the race because of a sore foot i am just getting over. So i did my usual thing, i photographed the race. This turned into more of a challenge than i figured on. At race time, the snow was coming down pretty good, mostly sideways though and right into the front of the lens, meaning the auto focus was getting thrown off.  I was constantly wiping water off the lens glass too which was giving the photos a softened effect, not what i was looking for. I found that the camera kept focusing on the snowflakes and not the runners . I have shot in snow before as well as rain and even monsoon conditions and this may have been the toughest race i have done. So, all in all, i wasn't totally thrilled with the results, but considering the weather, they aren't that bad.  See them at scottmasonphoto.com

As for the finish of the race, it had to be one of the best i have seen. I was standing on the last downhill before the finish line that was about 100 meters away. As they came into sight, Kevin Tilton led Jim Johnson down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, Jim was pulling up even with Kevin, then as they approached the shed and went out of my line of sight, Kevin seemed to be pulling away again. When both came back into sight from behind the shed, Jim looked to be sprinting to catch Kevin and put in a final lunge at the line. Both went down and i could not see who won from my vantage point. In the end, it was called a tie. That last 30 seconds of the race was great! A fitting end to the GSSS season.

Another great finish to the season was having the post race awards at the Great Glen Outdoor Center. Sitting in a warm room with all those windows, looking out at the snow falling and the start area of the Mt Washington Road race was real nice. There was food from the cafe, a big cake with little pine trees on it and most importantly, a keg of Redhook LongHammer IPA. Boy did that IPA taste good after standing outside getting cold and soaked. The raffle was huge as they went two times around so as to not to leave anything untaken.




Big thanks go out to Chris Dunn and all the crew at Acidotic Racing for a great snowshoe series. In a winter season that lacked snow, the races still came off in a first class manner. Let us hope that the big snow is back for next season.




A big shout out goes to my teammates, the Tuesday Night Turtles, as we moved up to fourth place in the final team standings. Bob Jackman ended up third in the overall standings. Dave Principe was coming on strong at seasons end (look out next year). DJ Principe, at 11 years old, ran 4 races. Ben Keefe, John Peabody, Jenny Saunders, Vicki and Chris Jasparro all were there along the way. I even got out there 3 times in between aches and pains. I think we should have a stronger showing next season.




What is in that trash can Chris??? Could it be Longhammer IPA?




More Race Reports:


DoubleJ Running                                             Dare Might Things




HAV2RUN                                                       DoubleD Mountainrunner


Now on to the trail and mountain series. See you out there.



Scott









                                                                                

Greetings From Syracuse

This past weekend was the USSSA National Snowshoe Championship in Fabius, NY. My original plan was to run this race as i had qualified at the Sidehiller in Center Sandwich, NH. At the time, I figured that i had 5 weeks to get ready, but the way this winter was going, who knows what would happen. Well....Two weeks ago at the Horse Hill SS race in Merrimack, NH, I end up aggravating a nerve on top of my foot which made running impossible. Turns out that i probably had the strap on my snowshoes too tight and that led to the problem. All is well right now, I ran a 3 mile tonight without problem, but lack of training has really screwed up the season. Lack of snow hasn't helped either.

As for the Nationals, I decided to go up anyway. Turtle teammates Bob Jackman and Dave Principe were going up to race so i packed the camera and figured to shoot the races which i do better than racing lately. We took the 5 hour drive up on Friday, checked in at the Best Western and headed over to the race site to pick up numbers and check out the course. As we pulled off the main road on to the road to the park, i looked at the hill in front of us and joked how they would be finishing up that thing. Yeah...ha, ha, ha. Well, seems i was right and the race would finish the last 350 yards uphill to the finish line. At this point, I was sort of happy that i would not be running the next morning. Oh well, now that we have seen the course, it is time for a beer (more on that later).

Saturday morning comes, it is sorta cold, upper teens. We head up to Highland Park early to see the Juniors go off at 9, followed by the Women at 10 and finally the Men at 11:30. The course is in decent shape from the cold temps overnight, but it is headed for the 40 degree range today. In the womens race, it was good to see Acidotic Racings Amber Ferreira take the National title.

After two races and rising temps, the men took to the line. By now, the snow was getting soft, the course was getting chewed up and that meant the racers would suffer. The softer the snow, the slower the course. Talking to Dave P. after the race, he said how he couldn't get any footing at the start and lost time right away. He also mentioned how his footing was all over the place in the single track. The hill at the end did not help either as he fell on the way down and then almost again on the way back up to the finish.. Of course, watching the mens champion, Josiah Middaugh, run this thing, you would have thought the course was flat. He averaged just under 7 minutes a mile in slow, mushy snow on a hilly 10k route. Just amazing to watch. I guess that is why he is a 4 time National Champion. Bob Jackman, fighting a cold, finished in 30th place at 56.15/9.04 pace and two spots behind was Dave Principe at  32nd/57.17/9.14 pace, good placings in a very competitive race.





Mens Race Results
Womens Race Results

I heard some grumbling after the race about the course, the hill and snow conditions. It is what it is, everyone had to deal with the same thing. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in different conditions. I wish i could have tested mine, but there is always next year!

Keeping with our tradition, we searched out a local brewpub for a pre-race meal and beer. Into Syracuse we went, Jackie, Bob, Dave and myself, to the Empire Brewing Co. It is down below street level in the basement of an old brick building, a very nice setting on a street loaded with restaurants. Checking out the beer menu, it was quite obvious what i was getting, so i ordered up the IPA along with Dave. It is a nicely hopped brew listed at 6.8% alc. We sampled something called Deep Purple, it is a wheat beer made with concord grapes, it wasn't horrible, just reminded me of grape soda. Bob and Jackie went for the darker stuff, stout and porter. I didn't hear any complaints so they must have been good. Food here was excellant too. I had a Philly Turkey which is a Philly Cheesesteak, only with turkey instead of steak. It was great! No sweet potato fries here, but we did have this big slab of blue corn bread as an app with maple infused butter. All in all, a very good brewpub.

For more Nationals reading, try these blogs:

Kevin Tilton

DoubleJ Running

Dare Mighty Things

Irongirl and Ultrarunning Boy

PHOTOS:

Mens Race
Womens Race
Juniors Race

Mens Race by Dave Dunham

DH Jones 10 Miler - Back in the Day 1981

I had thought about driving out to the USATF-NE Grand Prix / Jones Realty Group 10 miler today to shoot some pictures and see freinds run, but sleep got the better of me. So instead of todays race, i am posting some photos and results from the 1981 DH Jones/Sugarloaf 10 miler. I drove out there with race winner Roland Davide as well as Gerry Beagan and Kenny Field. It was a RI 1-2 that day as Ron Gillooly took 2nd place. Roland set the course record at 51.02. I do not know what the current CR is, but seems to be a pretty good time by RI's best runner ever on that particular course.

This day was also the first time i had seen Dick and Rick Hoyt run in a race, it was early in their running career. It is amazing at what they have accomplished in the 29 years since then. I only wish i had pictures of them finishing.

See more photos here.

The race report was from the April 1981 Issue of Frontrunner Magazine. Click on the article to enlarge.

Horse Hill Turtles

Nothing like a beer and some food after a race. After the Horse Hill SS race, we hit Martha's Exchange in Nashua. I recommend the veggie panini with sweet potato fries. As for drink, i started with the Vow of Silence Belgian Stout. It had a real homebrewed taste to it, very smooth and at 7.5%, a little bit of a kick. Sticking with the belgian style, i went for the Abbot's Habit Tripel. For a beer at 9%, it was not noticeable, very smooth going down. As you can see from the picture that Dave Principe took with his Blackberry, mine only came in a smaller glass where his S.H.A.P.E. ale could be served in a 22oz glass.
In 3 visits to Martha's, i have never been disappointed. They rotate different beers on a regular basis and the food is always good. I only wish the few brewpubs down here in RI were more like this, They basically suck in the brewpub world. You might as well head over to Wild Colonial and grab a Gansett. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Now for the race. After being cancelled once for lack of snow and the possibility of it being a trail race, we were blessed with a mid week snowstorm. Merrimack got somewhere between 6 to 8 inches of snow, but you would have never guessed it by looking at the ground on Saturday. Most of the snow was gone!

The big decision today was what to do with two SS races being held and a so called double header taking place. You got Horse Hill at 11:30 and then the Kingman Farm Moonlight race at 6 pm. Reports of lack of snow at Kingman settled the choice, Dave Principe said he was going to Horse Hill and that was it, i would be there in a support role. The more shoers your team has, the better your team places and the Turtles are in a battle for the 4-5-6 places in team competition. Dave was there with the Principe clan, Denise, Tara and SS stud DJ. I drove up with Vicki and Chris Jasparro, both SS newbies. We pulled in the parking lot to see less than 20 cars, so you had to wonder what the turnout would be like. Next in the small lot was DoubleJ in the short bus, so i knew the race would go out fast for the runners up front. Before the race, i talked to Steve Wolfe who said snow coverage was pretty good but there were some thin and bare spots out there. Steve also said the course was pretty flat......Never trust someone from New Hampshire telling you that the course is pretty flat :)  I went out for a couple of miles to warm up with Dave and DJ, Chris and Vicki went out to test their loaner Dion snowshoes. I got a chance to catch up with Jim Hansen before the start, we had a good battle last year over at Feel Good Farm. I could only watch his back today. We then headed up to the path for the 11:30 start time.

A few words before the race start by director Mike Amarello and we were off. JJ took off like a bat out of hell and the rest followed. Uphill for a quarter and then into single track. I went out easy, running with Vicki. Dave was out in the front pack and Chris was in the second pack. I was running comfortably for the first half of the race with Vicki right on my tail, but as i was hitting my aerobic capacity, i pulled to the right and let Vicki go by. Why hold up someone else? Nice thing about snowshoe races is that most everyone is aware of shoers behind them and will gladly pull over to let you by. In the end, JJ won easily, but the battle for second was close with Dave Principe edging out Sean Snow for second. Other Turtles were Chris Jasparro in 10th and his wife Vicki in 15th, not bad for two runners who never put a snowshoe on before today. I place 19th with a so-so effort and 5th Turtle was DJ Principe in 28th place. DJ and a few others took a wrong turn out on the course, so their times should have been about 2 minutes better. DJ was the youngest on the course by 6 years, he being 11 years old.

After the race i realized that i had broken a cleat on my Dions. That was nothing compared to DJ who had his rear strap slip up above his shoes and dig into his achilles. Steve Wolfe was running on busted up snowshoes too. Lousy snow conditions can really do some damage.

It seems there is snow/rain in the forecast for this week. Lets hope it is more snow than rain in Exeter, NH. Next week is the Hullaballoo and i really want to run it.

Photos courtesy of Denise Principe

                                                                                    Race Results Here

                                                                                    DoubleJ race blog
                                                                                    Jim Hansen blog
                                                                                    Steve Wolfe blog

Turtles @ Sidehiller

Nothing like waking up bright and early on a Saturday morning to find it is 7 degrees out and you have a 3 hour drive in front of you where the temperature will be dropping even lower. So it was, yesterday, as i waited for Jackie, Bob, Dave and DJ to get to my house for the trip up to Center Sandwich, NH and the Sidehiller snowshoe race. It really isn't too bad a drive, as it tends to go by fairly fast. We had the Family Guy's Star Wars adventure going for the back seat passengers, some good politically uncorrectness to pass the time.


 By the time we got off the highway in Ashland, the temp was reading -1 or 9, depending on which bank you prefer. The one thing that was noticeable was the lack of snow and because of that, the Sidehiller course had been altered from last year. This year it was a 3 lap race around the fairgrounds with a few short excursions into the woods. A very fast course. For some anyway.


We arrived about 9:45 for the 11 am race and headed to check-in. Right away you could spot the horses, Jim Johnson was there with a copy of the Fosters Daily Democrat newspaper pullout section "Showcase" with an awesome snowshoe race photo on the cover taken by yours truly. See the article by Geoff Cunningham here. Also spotted at check in were names like Dunham, Ferenc, Morse, Quintal, Wolfe and Tilton. I was thinking i should have photographed the race instead of running it. Too late now. We did a short warmup with the CMS boys and then it was time to race.


At the start, i was lined up about 3 rows back. I did not know what to expect here. The front row looked like just a regular stacked 5k race, all of them were ready to just slam the pace as the race started. I was just there to run steady and finish. I started next to teammate Ben Keefe and his brother, Josh, who was sporting a nice moose hat, antlers and all. When the race started, everyone went off like it was a road race! I'm thinking, Damn, what is going on here. I can't figure out if i went out too slow or too fast. I ran with a group for the first 1.7 mile lap, feeling half way good, but really not sure how things were going. At the short hill right before the finish, i walked to the top and started running again. My knees were not liking the uphills today, as they were sore for most of the week and the only way to make them feel better was to try massaging them by getting my fingers up under the kneecap. A nice form of self torture :) Once at the crest of the hill, i was just fine. I finished the first lap in 13 change and then dropped off for the next 2 laps. The 2nd lap was 14+ and the last dreadful lap was 15 or so. I was hoping to have a somewhat better race today, but it just wasn't in the cards. I went into the race with only 10 miles for the week and fighting off a chest cold. I know, i don't like excuses either but half way through the race, i knew i wasn't going to run anything worth bragging about.


 Up front, teammate Bob Jackman was running a good race, finishing in 7th place. Not as good as last year, but a much better field today. Turtle Prez Dave Principe, who has been bitten by the SS bug, sporting brandy new Atlas snowshoes, finished up in 14th place, not too far behind Jim Pawlicki and Eric Morse and realizing what a difference a real pair of shoes make.  Next Turtles up were Ben and Josh Keefe in 32nd and 33rd place. The elder Keefe let the kid brother win :)  I was the next TNT runner in 47th place. After me was DJ Principe who was having a bad day. DJ was complaining of a sore calf muscle on the warmup and it really came around to bite him in the race. He finished in 76th place, no where as good as he ran at Feel Good Farm, but still kudos go out to DJ, the youngest finisher in the race. One more runner of note is Rose, Ben's signifigant other who finished 87th.


All in all, a fun day. TNT'ers Bob Jackman, Dave Principe, and myself all qualified for the SS Nationals in Syracuse, NY in March. 


One other note from the race. It was great to meet up with former employee Chris Tessier from Athletic Attic days, who i had not seen for 20 years. We worked in the RI Mall many years ago, drank beer in the parking lot after the store closed and were big Police fans, the band, not the local constabularies. Where is your next SS race Tess?


Race is over, now what? Oh yeah, brewpub time!


Today's choice is Milly's Tavern in Manchester, NH.  Situated in the basement of an old mill building on the river, it is a great location! The place was deserted for the most part, being a Saturday afternoon.  The Turtle crew grabbed a table and tripled attendance at the bar. The beer menu had 16 beers on tap, all in house brews. I naturally gravitated towards the hoppiest they had, ManchVegas IPA. It is a decent IPA with good west coast hops and not too much maltiness. A very drinkable IPA. I was bummed out that the Imperial IPA was not on tap as it was last time here. It Rocks!! I did try the cherry porter. It is a pretty good brew with subtle cherry flavor. As for food, i had the BBQ Chicken Quesadilla with a side of sweet potato fries. The sweet potato fries were good, not outstanding. 


On a side note, as i type this, i have Pulp Fiction going in the background. Is there a better scene than Mia getting the adrenaline shot from Vincent when she is OD'ing. Oh well, probably not everyones cup of tea....... 


Next week? Looks like Exeter. Talking with Northfield RD Dave Dunham on the warmup, seems like that race could be a no go. I prefer to do the longer race, but i want to race no matter what. Looks like Exeter. Then Horse Hill, Kingman Farm and Nationals. Granite State Finals, maybe i run........maybe i just take the camera, what do you think, Chris Dunn??


More race blogs here when they are good and ready to post: 


Dave Dunham
Jim "DoubleJ" Johnson
Acidotic Racing
Steve Wolfe
Jim Pawlicki


Sidehiller Results
Sidehiller Photos 


Later


Scott