A Bunch of Blows

20 miles of them, to be exact.

Runnin' against the wind Runnin' against the wind See the young man run Watch the young man run Watch the young man runnin' He'll be runnin' against the wind

Who would have ever believed you could actually run into the wind for 20 FREAKING STRAIGHT MILES? Bob Seger would have been proud of the E Streeters on the roads of Maine and New Hampshire earlier today, but if we had him within arms length, we might have punched him in the face.

Oh a mighty winds a blowin, it's kickin up the sand, it's blowin out a message to every woman, child and man

Yes a mighty winds a blowin, cross the land and cross the sea, it's blowin peace and freedom, its blowin equality.

Nightmarish wind conditions greeted those of us stupid enough to have showed up for the Eastern States run today. None of us were able to take in the gorgeous sights along the New Hampshire coast because we were all too busy running with our heads down trying to fight through the constant buffering from the winds. Either that or we were too busy looking for non-existent mile markers along the route. By the way, those breaker walls in Northhampton? They don't stop squat when it comes to wind.

The only redeeming grace for the day was the feedback awaiting us at Camp Scanlon in Seabrook. Salad, beef stew and lasagna all around, along with some cold ones and an impromptu birthday party, helped salvage an otherwise infuriating afternoon.

Three weeks to Boston.......

Who'll Stop the Rain? Or the E-Streeters?

Long as I remember, the rain's been comin' down

Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground

Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun

And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?

Okay, we can all agree, this one was ridiculous. In fact, Andrew's WTF am I doing out here?!?! moment just about sums it all up, I think. Yeah, the 5-mile Hynes Road Race during a full-blown nor'easter was an interesting experience. While the monsoon scared away some of the less-than-hearty souls - let's call them fair-weather runners for the sake of this blog post - the E-Streeters still represented. And got soaked in the process. This wet 'n wild finale completed the trio of races for the Wild Rover series.

As always, a combo of our own pics coupled with Jim Rhoades', whose photo shoot was somewhat protected by a massive umbrella.

Here's Andrew, who came home with yet another beer stein for his second-place finish in his age group. Does anyone else think it's kinda odd that the 11-19 age brackets gets a beer mug for their finishes?

I wore something bright so my wife could find me through the deluge.

Here's Barry, trying his best to stay dry and failing.

Sean can do this run with his eyes closed.

Barry can't see a thing in front of him here.

And me, with my Irish flag colors:

Tommy would rather be bailing water out of his cellar:

Sean seems to have lost Jill out on the course:

All he had to do was look for her hat:

Tommy, running the yellow light:

The Happy Couple, still reeling from the festivities of the night before:

The Four Horsemen:

And finally, the whole band of idiots:

There Arose Such a Claddagh

A fun day today on the streets of Lawrence for the Claddagh four-mile race. Not too many of the E Streeters could make the trek, though, with some of the Marathon Men still recovering from our 18-mile run yesterday along the Boston Marathon course.

For those who did make it, though, there was a huge crowd, a cloudless sky, one bitch of a hill, a great post-race dinner of pasta and salad, and oh - in Andrew's case, some hardware!

After two years of less than stellar outings that were grating on him at this race in Lawrence, Andrew broke through in a big way today, obliterating his previous times and posting a first-place finish in his age group, with a 23rd place finish overall, out of 909 runners!

Jill represented the Kenny family well, with husband and son waiting at the finish line to cheer and photograph her.

Second in a series of medals, with next Sunday's Hynes' five-miler rounding out the trio. Thanks again to Jim Rhoades for taking some of the course pics.