Clinton Tribute Road Race

Clinton, MA   May 12th, 2007

This is a good race.

 

The race is dedicated every year to recognize and honor someone in the Clinton community who makes a difference. This year it was Tom O'Connell.

 

We go on with our lives – me included – with very little interaction with the rest of the community in which we live.

 

I know, I know, I’ve yapped about this previously, but hey, it’s important.  Important enough for these folks in Clinton to go to great lengths to honor these individuals.

 

So we should all learn from this and make a plan to get out there and get involved in the community. 

 

Lets say if your not presently volunteering one night a week – make that your goal, If you are volunteering one night a week, step it up to two nights, and so on and so on.  Hey, at this rate who knows, you might get recognized and honored. 

 

Think about it, we’re nutty enough to do this series, kind of a selfish goal, yeah we get to hang out with our friends, drink beer and make fools of ourselves, but a lot the races are charity events like this put on by volunteers for a worthy cause. 

 

Lately however these events are turning into money-making ventures with paid staff but that’s a blog for another day. In short, get out there and mix it up…turn off the friggin’ TV.

 

Onto the race,  If I had to choose a definitive challenging five miler, this would be it.  Three hills each progressively larger, then a downhill sprint to the finish.  The weather was perfect, all of us well rested with 5 weeks from the two race weekend.  I gotta tell ya after that my knees were toast.  I only have a few more races in me.  It took a while to recover.

 

The big news this day was that MVS’s Dave Tyler went nude to jump ahead of CRR’s Gail Martin in the series points standings.  Is it only Manny Arruda and me the only fools crazy enough to run nude in each series where points were given for such thing?  The series ain’t over…

 

CRR’s Dave Malliaros drives me out to this locale and we’re over an hour early…it takes that long to uncoil out of his little speedster of a car.  The RAT Peter Wallan has the series shirts – complete with advertising – RICK BAYKO – YANKEE RUNNER – with bright Jim DuPont orange lettering.  Somehow I know Jim is gonna get his hands on one of these, even though he retired from series running back in GPS #3.

 

These series has had their share of injured runners, I remember in GPS #4 at this race seeing SRR’s Pete Brook and his foot looking like ground hamburger before he carefully eased his racing flats on.  This series we had no less than three walkers: Greater Brockton Striders own Peter Buhl, BFD’s Manny Arruda and WCRC’s Dale Eckert.  It was Manny who brought a cane in case the other two tried to get away with something…whack!  Keeping honest people honest.

 

TVFR’s Ken Jacobson was there with legendary Ken Mueller, these guys are serious RATs, not to be trifled with.  CSU’s Hank Gediman and Duke Hutchinson.  Duke ran the Gloucester’s Cape Ann YMCA Backshore 5’er the night before.  Two more dyed in the wool RATs.

 

In the parking lot I spy a skinny NMC’s’ Jeff Gould, I comment on his weight and he says he’s 131 pounds.  I see his partner in crime  NMC’s Judy Tibbetts later and she says she weight 3 pounds more.

 

The toughness of the course, the caliber of the runners, the devotion of the race volunteers make this race something special and the vibe given off is all positive. 

 

The sun was out in force with a nice breeze to delay the hurt from the sunburn.  We stand stationary stewing on this straight steep striped street that is the start and wait.  The walker take off to a round a applause and we take to the line.  At the stroke of 12:30 we’re off and I pace off of a clothed Dave Tyler and GFTC’s Ted Ridout, be side me is NMC’s Larry Morris ten years my senior.  Larry got me at Stu’s and I wanted revenge.  The first mile 7:43 and we stay together.  Mile two we battle back and fourth and into mile three he gains,  Mile four it’s him and me, cresting the hill Larry pulls away and I can’t gain, downhill and around I can’t find pull even and he remains twenty yards ahead.  And that's way it was straight to the finish.