NETT @ RTB 2014

Big congrats to the NETT-heavy Wings Reach the Beach team that completed yet another successful run at the 180-mile relay. Here's the report from Cap'n K:

It was another memorable year. It reminded me  again of how incredible a group this is. For the first time, we did have a few curve balls. When we had a runner go down early with an injury. Poor Peter. We read the rules which said that the next runner had to take over, and could move forward either doing doubles (i.e. all of his and the injured runner's legs), or we could completely switch the rotation, moving the next runner into Peter’s legs etc. and having the last runner doing an extra leg.

By minor miracle, the person who was next in rotation was Tom — the only person on the team who is running a 100-miler in two weekends, and for whom the extra miles were a gift. So he came into Van 1 (we now had 7) and he did each of the injured runner's legs and his own. In the meantime Peter, who now lives in NH and could easily have gone home, stayed with us (in pain and barely able to walk) and navigated for the next 24 hours.

Everyone ran beautifully — each person inspired by the person before them.  In the end we came in 3rd out of 120 ‘mixed open' teams and 23 out of 518 teams total. I credit everyone’s absolute fear of disappointing their team mates for the unbelievable performances. The course was a little longer this year and the legs were longer too (most people did higher mileage than in the past) and everyone rose to the challenge. Having 7 legs to cover in one van also meant that sleep time was cut by at least an hour, because the van couldn’t advance to the van transition area until the 7th runner was done (instead of the sixth). We figure we had about 2 hours total over the 25.

Pictures are up on the Facebook page. We mostly ran in NETT shirts this year and we had a lot of inquiries about who this ‘fast’ team was! Really fun.

Here's a great video Marshall produced:

Reach the Beach Wings small 2014 from Marshall on Vimeo.

Bob Continues to Dominate on the Trails

NETT's Bob Segal has continued to dominate the 60+ age group in trail races around New England, and he's not shying away from the most challenging of them all.

In early August, Bob took on a New England classic trail race on the Grand Tree circuit. Here's his report: In my first race over 10 miles this season, I survived the 15.2 mile Savoy Mountain race this past Sunday out in western Mass. Although equally unprepared this year as last, I still managed to chop 11 minutes off my time and come in 4th in my age group.

http://www.runwmac.com/gt2014/savoy2014.html

In late August, Bob continued his domination of the North SHore Trail Series at the Beverly Commons Trail Race. As you will see here, Chris, Alison, and Bob each won their age groups in the 7 mile race. See the results here: www.coolrunning.com/results/14/ma/Aug23_Beverl_set4.shtml

And more recently, Bob tackled another New England beast. Here's his report:

On Sunday, I tried the 18 mile Wapack Trail race again, primarily to help get me in shape for the Stone Cat marathon in November. I although I am having a good season racing, only one of my races so far has been over 10 miles (Savoy Mountain 15 miler), so I knew I would not be very competitive. Instead, my goal was to just get in the work, avoid injury, and try to run under 5 hours, to improve on my 5:02 finish in 2012.

MIssion accomplished: Did not fall once and finished in 4:51. Youngstah came in 9th overall!

This is a very tough race. I would say that 85% of the race is technical enough going up and down the 4 mountains that you really can't run fluidly very much at all. In fact, I can think of only one area --- along a logging trail --- where you can actually run normally. Otherwise, it's all mountain goat style. You can see the results and read the write-up from the race directors here:

http://wapack.freeservers.com/custom3_6.html 

Nice work Bob! Way to represent.

NETT Hosts the Final Chamberas XC Race

Well..that's all she wrote. NETT hosted the 13th and final Thomas Chamberas XC Race in August and as usual, the crack team of volunteers made sure everything went off without a hitch. Many many thanks to all the folks who have supported this race over the years, from volunteers to sponsors to clubs to spectators.

Here's a video that sums up this year's race pretty well: