Every second counts
I just returned home from New Bedford and was excited to see that today's New Bedford Half Marathon results were posted on coolrunning.com, just a few hours since the last finisher crossed the line. I was anxious to see the individual results and more importantly, the men's team results. I sent out an email to the CMS Men's Open Racing Team (MORT) over a month ago trying to encourage everyone to get out and support the New England Grand Prix road race series. I had visions of five guys under 1:12:00. CMS has some very talented athletes with various expertise and focus on running disciplines such as Mountain Running, Trail Running, Ultra Running, Snow Shoe racing, et cetera. As a result, it can be a challenge to field a competitive team at New England Championship road races which kicked off today in the Whaling City.
I am a competitor in a discipline called Road Racing. I don't have any particular strengths to take advantage of in any other specific disciplines such as Trail Racing or Mountain Running. I have had wonderful experiences participating in such events. However, I have a competitive interest toward team competition and want to see my team do well against other teams otherwise known as our competitors.
I suspect I got this competitiveness in college as an athlete on the Salem State Cross Country team. SSC had the ability and talent to compete for the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference title in each of the four years that I ran on the team. We, as a team, trained hard all summer and obsessed about beating our nemesis, Westfield State College, each fall at the Conference meet. It motivated most us and gave the team a goal to train and strive for every November. The MASCAC conference scores the teams by individual placing of the top five runners on each scoring team. I recall winning the conference once and being a bridesmaid twice by just a few places each time. As a result, we have had our share of ups and downs as a team.
Since college, I have had a deep appreciation for team related running series or seasons. In other words, team competition. Unlike a cross country season that can last three months, our Road Race Grand Prix is spread out over the course of a year, generally starting in March and concluding in October. In addition, USATF-New England has not invested any resources to a Cross Country season or Grand Prix Series in several years with a focus towards team competition. As a result, the New England Road Race Grand Prix series has been nearest and dearest to me personally and replaced what I was so obsessed with in College.
I was so grateful that I could continue to put a singlet on after college, represent a team, and run like hell to try and score for the team. Team scores in our Grand Prix are tabulated by the aggregate time it takes the top five runners of each team, with the exception of the distances between the 30K and Marathon which require three, to run the race. As of this evening, we scored a tie for Second place with the Greater Lowell Road Runners, based on the times of each of our scoring five athletes.
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MALE OPEN TEAM Results
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1. BAA
1:08:06 1:08:46 1:08:47 1:08:47 1:09:13 = 5:43:39
993 TERRY SHEA JR 31, 1247 KEVIN O'NEIL 35, 981 CHRIS MAGILL 32,
957 MATTHEW ELY 29, 962 KEVIN GRAY 27
2. CMS
1:08:58 1:11:32 1:12:02 1:12:54 1:13:00 = 5:58:26
1487 PAUL LOW 31, 267 RICHARD BOLT 34, 266 DAN VERRINGTON 42,
261 JOE SHAIRS 36, 260 SERGIO RIBEIRO 35
2. GREATER LOWELL RR
1:09:26 1:10:17 1:11:48 1:13:20 1:13:35 = 5:58:26
1021 JIM EMORD 23, 1023 LEWIS JONES 27, 1024 GEORGE LUKE 39, 1030
MARK REEDER 45, 1481 DAVID PRASSE 24
4. DIRIGO
1:10:13 1:12:05 1:12:06 1:12:09 1:12:17 = 5:58:50
1236 MICHAEL PAYSON 41, 1276 ETHAN HEMPHILL 32, 1245 JUDSON CAKE 27,
1249 ANDREW SPAULDING 34, 1082 KEELYN WU 37
Complete results
Second place exceeded my expectations for our team today. I don't care about the critics who have excuses why their top five did not represent today or if someone had a bad day at the office. We showed up and gave it our best with those that came and raced us today. I don't care for ties and within team competition, there is no place for it. I am not certain on the rules and if USATF-NE considers a sixth or seventh scoring member if needed in the scoring, but the nod would go to CMS today.
I would like to raise a cup o' chowda to the team today. We had some runners travel a few miles to represent CMS MORT today. In addition, a few sacrifices were made. Paul Low sacrificed racing a 10K yesterday to battle it out for a strong 8th place finish. Ben Newphew raced despite less than 'Nephew like training' and still carries stitches from a surgical procedure last week. I am proud of the effort that we put forth and hope that the CMS MORT team continues to race and be competitive during the remaining New England Grand Prix events. Today's second place finish just goes to show you, every second counts. See you in May for the Bedford Rotary 12K on May 21.
Jim Pawlicki
