Looking for an excuse to wear green while you run? If so, you’re in luck because there are several upcoming St. Patty’s Day races to choose from!
Here in Southeastern CT, you can race both days of the weekend. Saturday, March 13 at 9:30am is the Hartford Marathon Foundation’s O’Niantic 5K, taking place (obviously) in Niantic. Then, on Sunday, March 14, downtown New London is host to a brand new race called the Downtown Shamrock Shuffle 5K, taking place at 10am.
If you’re in the mood, you can trek up to Hartford on Sunday for the HMF’s O’Hartford at 1pm.
Although this doesn’t have a St. Patty’s Day theme, you can also partake in the Train to End Stroke Mystic Moon River Run/Walk (3 mile run or 1 mile walk) which starts at Pearl Street and goes up River Road to the highway bridge and back. Race starts at 6pm, Sunday, March 14.
Check out our race calendar for more upcoming area races!
Just about every run I do outside includes some instance of catcalling, honking, or other rude remarks. These are generally offered by men or teenage boys, and I deal with these incidents by ignoring them. However, the other day, a couple of middle school girls hurled an insult my way, and something inside me just snapped.
“Run, you skinny b_____! RUN!”
I stopped, turned around, and glared at my assailants, who were across the street.
“CAN I HELP YOU??” one of the girls demanded. Clearly, my stink-eye glare was not at all threatening.
I was so shocked by their brazen attitudes that I just turned and kept running. But I wondered if I should have said something. But what would have helped? I’m not sure I could have taught them the value of respecting other people or treating people how you would like to be treated. So what was the point?
Shortly after, I was catcalled by a group of men standing around on the sidewalk, and then after that, someone yelled something unrecognizable (probably a good thing I didn’t understand) out their window as they sped by.
It’s funny because I recently came across this post on Runner’s World which talks about interactions with drivers/pedestrians and runners. That article also linked to a post about kids yelling “Run, Forest, run!” at runners. (Which DID happen to me last year, also by a group of middle school girls. I ignored them.)
Among the most famous runners, Steve Prefontaine has been the subject of two feature films, Without Limits and Prefontaine. While Without Limits is considered the better of the two films it is not the one available for free viewing. So, here we present Prefontaine, starring Jared Leto as Pre. The film was produced by Disney which means it reaches high levels of melodrama at the expense of objectivity, but it’s a good watch nonetheless. The film is available for another 12 days before it expires.
We decided to take advantage of the first big snowfall of the winter by doing a little snowshoeing at Bluff Point in Groton. Snowshoeing is a lot of fun and great cross-training for runners.
Although it was nice walking along the main trail, we enjoyed exploring the smaller, less trodden trails in the middle of the park. Here, the snow was less packed down, and we saw a lot of animal tracks.
At the Mystic Turkey Trot, I had the opportunity (mid-trot) to speak to John Trahan, president of the Mohegan Striders. The Mohegan Striders are a running club based in Southeastern CT that offers social running, group track and road workouts, Club Grand Prix and USATF competition, and more. Their Tuesday training runs take place in East Lyme, and their Sunday training runs take place at Mohegan Park in Norwich.
Their next event is the Tommy Toy Fund Fun Run, a 1.5 mile fun run with Santa starting at Billy Wilson’s in Norwich. The event takes place Friday, December 4, at 7pm and collects toys for needy children for Christmas.
This Thanksgiving, we enjoyed another Mystic YMCA Turkey Trot and Dip (though only a few people actually dipped from our group). Here’s a group shot of us donning our Jog New London turkey trot shirts.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Mystic YMCA’s annual turkey trot, it’s a very low-key event where people have fun while getting a little exercise in. There’s no official start line. People gather around the entrance way of the YMCA and the Y director greets people from atop an ambulance. Once the director blows the air horn, everyone’s off. There’s a variety of participants – from old pros to energetic little kids to people in banana suits and everyone in between. People bring out their strollers and their dogs as well. The route goes down Mason’s Island Road to the marina on Mason’s Island and back. There’s no official finish line, although I suppose you could count the edge of the water as the finish since you’re supposed to take a dip at the end.
At a Halloween charity race in Denver, a new record was set: most people in gorilla suits. The Denver Gorilla Run, a 3.5 mile road race, boasted 1061 runners dressed in gorilla costumes.
The event raised money for the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund. Mountain gorillas are currently in extreme danger of becoming extinct.
The Baltimore Sun has reported that the Hereford boys cross country team was stripped of their championship win on Monday due to uniform violations.
One of the runners wore a pair of black compression shorts under his running shorts. At issue was the white stitching visible on the shorts. This violated Rule 9, Section 6, Article 1b of the National Federation of High Schools rule book, which states: “Items displaying seams stitched on the outside of the garment in a visible contrasting color to the undergarment will be illegal beginning with the 2009-10 school year.”
The situation must have been a huge disappointment to the runners.
This past weekend at the Des Moines Marathon, runners faced an unusual challenge, a train. Simon Sawe was leading the race with four hundred meters left when his path was suddenly blocked by a crossing train. After 10 seconds the runner in second caught up, then the runner in third, and so on, until a group of runners stood waiting for the train to pass. So the 26.2 mile race, which seemed in the bag for Sawe, came down to a 400 meter sprint to the finish once the train passed.
Luckily for Sawe, he was a 1500 m specialist before turning to marathons and was able to regain a lead in the final sprint. He won the race and the 3000 purse.
At the Mystic Turkey Trot, I had the opportunity (mid-trot) to speak to John Trahan, president of the 
