North Shore Striders at Lynn Woods

Lynn Woods Relays, August 23, 2017 – By Linda Desjardins.

Reflections on Lynn Woods…again. It’s fun to be there. It’s nice to see Striders and some of our friends from other clubs like Team Gloucester and Wicked and many others. But we all do seem to agree that this is one tough race. That first hill grabs us before we’re aerobically stable and squeezes every ounce of oxygen out of us. I remind myself I’ve run Mt. Washington twice and try to convince myself that this is just a molehill. No. It is not. And I use the word “run” Mt. Washington loosely because it’s more like a power walk. We all RUN this race. I was…breathless for most of it. The rough terrain is foreign to the feet of many us as we train on much less hilly and much smoother surfaces. The tree canopy is forgiving in the warm weather; but when the sun peeps through openings, we are blind to the rocks and roots, and an inner voice sends a “be cautious” message to our brains. “Let up, let up” the tempting voice says. But we all trek on. The turnaround is always nice because it’s nearly halfway. But as soon as we start thinking…hey this isn’t all that bad, the goat path (which grows in length and difficulty annually) reminds us this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around. Staying upright while still making forward progress is now the mantra. Don’t fall. It’s OK to walk over that rock rather than try to bound over it. Right when we think the left turn will never appear, Ta Dah…there it is. And that downhill is very welcome. As soon as those cheering us along to the finish come into sight, that last-minute surge propels us to the finish line as we thankfully look over to see our next teammate undertake the challenge that is Lynn Woods. Yeah, we’ll all do it again next year. The North Shore Striders always do ourselves proud, as Mike’s chart clearly indicates. We have all earned a standing ovation.

Results Compiled by Michael Pelletier.

Here are the corrected results for the North Shore Striders at Lynn Woods. I wasn’t quick enough to get some late changes to Bill Mullen in time for the first published results, but Bill will correct the on-line results and republish them as soon as he can.

The two fastest Male North Shore Striders were Sean Michael Kay (4^th Overall) and Bass Camara (19^th Overall).

The two fastest NSS women were Jen Rosman and Lauren Hamilton.

• Roger Perham – Team Photographer
• Anne Pelletier – Tee-shirt & Food Coordinator
• Nancy Giannone – Assistant to Anne