Club News

35th Annual Bedford Rotary Memorial Road Races
by Michael Pelletier
Saturday, May 16, 2009

BEDFORD, NH - In the third stop on the USATF/NE Grand Prix, five Strider men and three Strider women made the trek to Bedford, NH, for the Bedford Rotary 12K.

Maybe for the first time in North Shore Strider history, in a single race four of our teammates ran times under the USATF Age-group Guidelines. The guidelines denote elite performances for each standard distance by age groups. Running under the USATF Age-group Guidelines for a 12K race were Annajean McMahon, Linda Fitzpatrick, Anita Robboy, and Giuseppe Giannone.

Since three women constitute a team at all age groups in the USATF/NE Grand Prix, the NSS Women's Senior Team of Annajean McMahon, Linda Fitzpatrick, and Anita Robboy was able to perform triple duty, finishing 11th of 13 teams in the Women's Open Division, 8th of 9 teams in the Women's Masters Division and 3rd in the Women's Senior Division.

Five men are necessary to field an open team or a masters team. David "The Kid" Ring and Masters runner Kevin Counihan joined Senior runners Lanse Stover, Giuseppe Giannone, and Dave Jefska to form a Men's Open team which finished 16th. Lanse, Giuseppe, and Dave also finished 11th as a Men's Senior Team which only requires three runners.

Individual Finishers:

Full results at Cool Running.

Backshore Five Miler
by Michael Pelletier
Sunday, May 10, 2009

GLOUCESTER, MA - Twenty-eight Striders competed in the Backshore 5M Race in Gloucester on Friday night. Some of our 5K specialists (a number of long-term Striders and new Striders) stayed away because this 5M race was too early in the season. Four Striders, Mike Pelletier, Dave Jefska, Lee Benton, and Nancy Giannone are on the Injured Reserve List  but were at the Backshore Race to lend support and distribute race applications for the Dory Run 5K (Memorial Day, May 25) and the Louise Rossetti 5K for Women (Wednesday evening, June 17).

Leading the Strider women was Layce Alves who was 2nd woman overall in 31:43, just 15 seconds behind the 1st woman. Layce continues to get faster, taking 1:09 off of her time from 2008 and 4:11 from her time in 2007.

Layce's source of fast twitch muscles, her mom, Linda Fitzpatrick, ran a similar race, finishing second to her long time Senior Master teammate, Annajean McMahon, just 26 seconds behind Aj. In so doing, Linda shaved 8 minutes off of her time from two years ago.

Annajean is back in racing form after an excellent Boston Marathon and captured first place in the 50-59 age group at the Backshore.

Also finishing 1st in her age group was Anita Robboy who captured the Women's Veteran Masters division, outrunning Carol Geis.

Leading the Strider men were Dan MacAlpine who was 3rd Male Senior Master in a time of 31:42 (1 second ahead of Layce) and Peter Malinowski who was 5th Male Senior Master in 34:36.

Making his debut at 5 miles was Armand Claveau who managed to run negative splits and be 2:40 under his goal time.

Another newcomer to the 5-mile distance is Joan Dailey who on Friday night ran 10 minutes faster than she did 12 days ago at Marblehead's Ring Around the Neck 5-Miler. Joan joins Annajean, Linda, Pattie, and Bonnie to form a strong Senior Masters team. (Deb Jackson, another senior woman and a noted track junkie, was spotted at Peabody High School. on Thursday night, running an interval workout under the watchful eye of Coach Fernando Braz.)

Striders getting older and faster included Sean Kay (34 seconds faster than in 2008), Frank Lanzillo (58 seconds faster than in 2008), Lanse Stover (1:20 faster than in 2007), Sue Quimby (5 minutes faster than last year), Vicky Yee (45 seconds faster than in 2007), Tom McMahon (2:25 faster than in 2007), Bob Holland (17 seconds faster than last year), Pattie Lowell (3:25 faster than in 2007), and Mary Stevens (2:55 faster than in 2008 and a whopping 8:16 faster than in 2007).

George Geis continued making steady progress in his comeback from last fall's hamstring strain and ran 40:01, dropping from an 8:17 first mile to a sub 8:00 last mile.

Rumors and innuendos: A highly questionable source reports that George Geis and Joe Giannone are advising Mario Fagone, the youngest male Veteran runner in the Striders, on the best way to win a place on the Veteran Men's A-team. According to the same source, Mario is using Wally Kurz, a formerly nationally ranked Strider legend, as his role model. If true, Mario couldn't do better.

Individual Finishers:

Full results at Cool Running.