Run to Win

Are you racing in the Back Cove Weekly Series tonight? It is the last race of the season, and this year there are not just overall winners but also age group awards!

Click here to download full results for eligible runners.

Amongst the highlights, are the race for the overall winners.

On the ladies’ side, Taylor Bickford of Limington is in the lead with a cumulative time of 1:34:43, leading Michelle Lilienthal of Portland by 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Michelle is poised to drop a 21:05 slowest time, however, and Taylor’s slowest time is 19:24. If Michelle can run 18:58 or faster and beats Taylor by at least 26 seconds, then she will take first place.

That will have an impact on the age group awards. If Taylor wins the overall, then Kristen Glennie will most likely win F20-29 and Michelle will win F30-39. If Michelle wins the overall, then Taylor will win the F20-29 and Kalie Dunn will win the F30-39.

For the men, Chris Harmon and Spencer McElwain, both of Portland, will be dueling for the overall title, while the M20-29 win will most likely go to the other unless Aaron Epps, Andrew Tufts, or Marc Halverson have a breakout race. Chris is currently in the lead with a cumulative time of 1:24:10, 2 minutes and 51 seconds ahead of Spencer. Spencer needs to run a 16:48 or faster and has to beat Chris by at least 22 seconds in order to overtake him on the leaderboard.

For the rest of the age groups, Bea Hesselbart must run tonight in order to win the F19-under age group, and Caleb Richard of Saco will win the M19-under age division unless Michael Luna of Portland runs tonight to challenge him. Ryan Collins of Falmouth is in the lead with a time of 1:28:01 for M30-39, but Ara Parseghian of Portland is only 45 seconds behind him and Michael Gordon of Falmouth could jump onto the leaderboard and win the division if he races tonight.

Lauren Adey of Falmouth is comfortably in the lead of the 40-49 division with her 1:49:19, as is Mark Rich of Portland with his 1:41:55. It will be a close race between Suzie Brockelbank of Raymond (1:56:09) and Amy Bouchard of South Portland (1:56:23) for the F50-59 division. If Amy wants to overtake Suzie, she is going to need to beat her by at least 40 seconds and run at least 23:07 or faster. The M50-59 division could be a close race between Mitch Darrow of Portland (1:46:09), Edie Rabasco of Poland (1:46:33) and James Bickford of Limington (1:46:57)…but only if Pete Bottomley of Cape Elizabeth decides not to run his 6th race tonight.

Marilyn Bell of Cape Elizabeth (2:16:30) and Charles Kaufmann of Portland (1:41:47) will comfortably win the 60-69 divisions, as will Donna Jones (4:00:51) and Don Zillman (2:16:40), both of Portland, in the 70+ divisions.

Gary has been making great time this weekend, and as I write this on Monday morning he’s over 335 miles into his trip, and is making his way through Connecticut! Pretty soon he’ll be going through my old stomping grounds.

Fun stat #1: Gary covered 327 miles in his first week of running.

Fun stat #2: Gary is running through 9 states plus DC. Maine, the first state, comprised 29.7% of his total mileage.

You can follow his progress at MyAthleteLive.com and donate on his website at Maine2DCRun.com. If you live on his route, he always appreciates folks coming out to cheer for him.

Today we’ve got 2 updates for you, one from Saturday (day 6) and one from this morning.

First, here’s Saturday’s update:

And here’s his update from this morning (day 8):

Don’t forget to leave a donation for one of Gary’s causes, and if you can head out and bring him some coffee or food or run a few miles with him if you live between CT and DC.

Yesterday was day 4 of Gary Allen’s run from Maine to DC. He totaled around “43” miles, and I put that in quotes because he discovered that if he leaves the orange line his mileage stops counting until he rejoins it, and then it’s just the original mileage no matter how much extra he has run. As you can hear from his update, which he left early yesterday morning (but requested be delayed in posting) he was running with Joan Benoit Samuelson and she took him on a few detours to show him some of the sites in Freeport.

He determined to stay on the line the rest of the day, but had to detour again after a few miles on the Eastern Trail proved too difficult for his ankle, but more on that later.

First, here’s his morning update:

I joined Gary around noon when he got to Falmouth, and ran with him through Portland, South Portland, Scarborough and Saco. Gary ran for another 20 minutes after I got picked up to finish his run in Biddeford.

There was a lot of support for Gary yesterday; Kevin Morris again came out to take photos and ferry folks and gear back and forth along the route (click here to see his photos), and Sarah Emerson was part road crew and part road company as she got in about 20 of Gary’s 48 miles yesterday. There was a good crew of folks that joined him in Portland on their lunch breaks, some to run with him and others just to hang out during a break at Monument Square. He was joined later by Jim Berger and his wife who took care of him for the rest of the run and gave him a place to crash for the evening. (Good luck to them at the Houston Marathon this weekend!)

Gary was making great time all day, not stopping too frequently or for any length of time, until we got to the Eastern Trail. The snow was frozen and slippery…but not so frozen that it didn’t suddenly turn to slush unexpectedly and cause you to break through. It was no fun with my flat shoes with minimal traction, and was especially difficult for Gary and was aggravating one of his ankles every time we broke through. We couldn’t do any better than a walk/shuffle, and while the views and lack of traffic were great, we gave up on the Eastern Trail at the first road crossing and made our way back to Route 1, adding a few more miles to the trip but moving much faster.

The Portland Press Herald came out, sending a photographer to Falmouth to shoot some photos and video of us, and then calling Gary for an interview during our trip through the Prime Auto Mile in Saco. Here’s the story they shot:

(Click here if the video isn’t loading…)

Gary got about 90 miles through yesterday, and today has already passed the 100 mile mark. It looks like he will be running through Portland tomorrow for anybody in the Brunswick to Biddeford area that wants to join him for a few miles or to bring him some food or coffee or just cheer him on.

I just heard from Gary, and he’s left us an update from the road about 2/3 of the way through today’s run. You can listen to it below:

Gray ran 45.3 miles yesterday, and as I write this he is coming up on 80 miles total. Kevin Morris was there yesterday to get some great photos of Gary while he was running, which you can see at his website here: kevinmorris.photoshelter.com

Want to see where Gary is right this second? (Or, if it’s the middle of the night, where he left off for the day?) Just head over to MyAthleteLive.com to track him. You can get all the details about his run at his website, Maine2DCrun.com