Captain, My Captain!

Hugest of Wicked Good shoutouts today to Andrew, who was today chosen to be one of the co-captains for the Lowell High 2010 Cross Country team!

He'll never admit it, but I think it was the countless Town Lines he snatched from Scott, Carlos, and Sean on those cold Westford runs that got him ready to assume this role.

Turns out, Andrew's been running with Captains for quite some time:

A (Star Spangled) Banner Race

Saturday was the scene of a terrific outing in Carlisle's Great Brook State Park, as an incredibly competitive field took to the trails for the 8th Annual Thomas Chamberas 6K XC race. With all benefits going toward the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, it was a spectacular cause and a picture-perfect weather day.

Lots and lots of elite runners turned out for this one, including the First Place Team from last week's Moose Relay in Nashua, N.H.

Needless to say, the E-Streeters were more than well represented at this one. Here's some pics from on the course, courtesy of http://www.jimrhoades.com/ along with a spattering of shots from the cameras of Jill Kenny, Lyndsay Scanlon and their teams of trailside cheerleaders.

And of course, there were the bombards bursting in the air. Tommy, you lost the bet. You didn't even make it past the opening line.

The Distance Diva

So, Heather just finished up a terrific XC camp run by the Greater Lowell Road Runners. Huge kudos to Noelle Horelik, who ran the camp and did a fabulous job corraling all the kids together every day for their jaunt through the trails around Shedd Park.

At camp's end, Noelle did a great job doling out awards to each of the kids, putting a distinct touch on each of them, recognizing each of the individual personalities and styles.

One by one, she pecked through the group, until she got to Heather.

This award, she explained, "goes out to a great runner, who was on my case all week about the distance we were running. You see, it seems the two mile course we were doing wasn't enough. She just kept saying why don't we run longer, we should run more, we should do a longer course."

That's my girl.

So for her hardwork, tenacity, and her desire to go that extra distance, I present some pics of the winner of the official first-ever GLRR Distance Diva award, my XC star, Heather:

This one's from the John Piekos book of race photo posing:

A Bunch of Moose

Tons of fun today at the Moose on the Loose relay race in Nashua, N.H. where E-Streeter teams captured second and fourth place in the team competition. One of the two teams even captured some extra hardware in the post-race awards ceremony.

It was the E-Streeters first foray into a team relay, with two teams of four runners each clocking 2.5 mile runs. Great course, great conditions, great competition.

Here's some photo evidence to document the event.

Because what would a pre-race photo be without some heavy construction equipment? Warming up (blurry because they're running so fast):

The two front-runners, known in some corners as the Rabbits:

C-Note out in front:

The best looking cheering section in town:

C-Note to A-Game:Domi-Nate is either ready to give John the high-five or wants nothing to do with his ertswhile teammate:

Jonathan and Scott, who clearly did not coordinate on their choice of colors for the team race, get ready to wrap things up:

Barry "The Anchor", having finished his New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle while waiting for his turn, takes the hand-off from the Alaskan King Crab himself, John.

While not registered as an E-Streeter, Alyssa Hickey held her own, but opted to the entire 10 by herself instead of sharing the glory:

Here's Chute Spence, clearly perturbed that someone moved the finish line and didn't mark it clearly enough with orange cones:

And as always, the E-Street eight in their obligatory post-race glory:

Did I mention that one of the E Streeter teams captured some hardware at this one? Here's some photos to prove it:

Good Times Had By All

A little late on the post, but Tuesday night saw a record number of runners turn out for the extremely popular Good Times racing series in downtown Lowell, and the E Streeters were well represented with a healthy showing overall.

The series is tremendously popular, and features a different theme each week, with this week's including a competition to toss drink coasters into a waiting bucket on the sidelines (which explains some of the strange contortions and visuals from the pics below.)

Not my best night of shooting pics, but the day was saved thanks to the terrific works of folks over at http://www.jimrhoades.com/

A-Game led the pack, coming in 28th out of 261 runners. Heather did a terrific job, jumping into a 5K race. Sean Uncanny delivered his usual solid performance. Domi-Nate did the Lowell XC team proud.

Domi-Nate agreed to wear the number of the devil, a number everyone else eagerly passed on.

Barry was positively glowing at race's end.

Not everyone gets a medal..........