Bricks, bricks everywhere...Pretty soon, MVS will be able to build its own private club headquarters solely out of bricks from the Mill Cities Relay... For the second year in a row, MVS wins the tie-breaker with Winner's Circle Running Club and takes home the overall club championship at the Mill Cities Relays [Results Here].

Despite the frigid temps today (16 degrees in downtown Nashua at that start) and a couple of bad weeks of running since hurting my back after New Englands, I actually ran well at this freakin' thing. Not a misprint. I ran 'ok'....I'm talking 'better-than-mediocre'. There actually may be some progression happening here in December, yes it's true.

After the ceremonial drop of the brick by MVS' own Coach Fernando Braz, the first leg of the race was off. Matt Pimentel (MVS Mixed Open) and I led the way, accompanied by GLRR Men's Open member and recent Olympic Marathon Trial competitor Casey Moulton, and a runner from GCS Triad's Men's Open team. The four of us ran basically together for the entire leg. I slipped back a few seconds between miles 3 and 4, but held my own over this rolly 5.6 mile course from the YMCA in Nashua NH to the Sears Warehouse building in Hudson NH. My 4th and 5th mile were my fastest 2, as I reacted to a move by Casey Moulton, who took the lead for a couple of miles late in the race. Shortly after mile 5, Casey (who was most likely doing this as a light tempo run) dropped back and Matt Pimentel and the GCS Triad runner battled it out for 1st and 2nd place. I passed Casey shortly before the exchange zone and handed off to Lars Bjune in 3rd place, only a few seconds back of the leaders.

Lars (a last second fill-in for a missing man) ran a tremendous 2nd leg (4.75 miles) from Hudson NH to Greater Lowell Tech in Tyngsboro, MA, where he handed off to (again this is NOT a typo) David Hinga. Yes, David Hinga...in an MVS uniform. If you don't believe me, I have proof....

David ran very well over the quick and flat 3rd leg, and handed off to Jon Healey, who had just made it to the transition point at the UMass Lowell boathouse. He unfortunately didn't have sufficient time to warmup or even pin his number on all the way...He was also up against a very good GCS runner, Ben Ndaya from the GLRR, and a 45 second pee-break along the Merrimack. Regardless, Jon ran a great race over the toughest leg of the course and handed off to our youngest member of the team, Mike Masse of St. John's Prep in Danvers, MA. Mike ran a tremendous final leg and held our 3rd place slot secure. Only 1 minute back of our finish, Mike Toomey completed the anchor leg for the MVS Mixed Open team.

As usual, the Claddagh Pub in Lawrence was the site of the finish line and after party (also known as the '6th Leg'). After some grub and some adult beverages, we were presented with the hardware...

My splits for Leg # 1:
Mile 1 - 5:20
Mile 2 - 5:25
Mile 3 - 5:29
Mile 4 - 5:11
Mile 5 - 5:04
last .6 - 3:15

Total 5.6 Miles: 29:48 (5:19 pace)

Because of the confusing nature of the race and the temperatures, the lovely and talented Kristin was not in attendance today to take some pictures. I took what I could and amateur photographer-in-training Mike Masse took some for me as well. I neglected to tell anyone to try to get some of MY leg of the race, hence no photographic evidence that I actually ran yesterday morning, exists.


Check what we have here, plus some of Jon Healey's pictures ...
My Flickr Slideshow

My Flickr Photoset

Jon Healey's Pictures

...if anyone has any pictures they would like to share, let me know.