Week in Review: Nov 21, 2012

by Brenda Chroniak


Week in Review took a month (or so) hiatus, but plenty of you have been racing and posting results, so THANK YOU for holding up your end of the bargain, even if I didn't hold up mine. On this fine Thanksgiving-eve day, we bring WIR back so you can read some great race reports and see what your teammates have been up to.

In the "holy crap" category, Matt Pokress, Austin Whitman, Jamie Strain,and Bryan Canterbury all raced the Ironman World Championships in Kona with amazing results (read Austin's race report here), then just a few weeks later, Jamie raced Ironman Florida with Pat Dwyer, who placed 7th in his AG that day and even wrote up a race report. Meanwhile Brett Johnston completed a 7-day 250K extreme marathon through the Kalahari Desert, and finished in 17th place. As his youngest daughter would say- That's CRAY!  Want to see learn about what he went through? Want to see him finishing the race in the Golden Speedo? Read his race report. 

And any runner knows that fall brings some of the best running weather and a lot of great half-marathons and full marathons with it. For marathons, the Blue and Green represented in Philadelphia, where Mark Vautour and Audrey Perlow both had stellar races, and in Newport, where Braden Larmon got some podium time, with a third place age group finish (11th overall!). Half marathons this fall were plentiful. Laura Miyakawa finished 15th in her age group at the Fattman Cup Chili Half Marathon, Joe Kurtz had a top-10 age group finish and a top-20 overall finish at the Manchester City Half Marathon, Ira Sills finished 10th in his age group at the Baystate Half Marathon, Audrey finished 6th in her age group and was the 10th female overall at the Hershey Half Marathon--clearly a solid predictor of her success in Philly-- and Brett Johnston had a top-10 age group finish at the TARC Fall Classic half marathon trail race.

For shorter-distance runs, Steve Wall had a great day at the Groton Town Forest Trail Race; Ed Galante, Jim Sweeney, and a third mystery person whose name isn't showing up next to his/her results ran the Cambridge 5K Oktoberfest race, Lauren Bonaca had a third place age group finish at the Komen Race for the Cure and was 4th female overall; Mark Vautour, Mary Beth Begley, Maggie O'Toole, and Laurie Damianos all ran the Granite State 10-Miler, with Mark and MB both finishing top-10 in their age groups; and Cory and Chrissie Flashner both ran Bill's 5K where Chrissie finished 10th in her age group.

Back in the multisport world, Janice Biederman took 5th in her age group at MiamiMan (read her race report!), Elaine Metcalf took 5th in HER age group at the Ironman Austin 70.3, and Steve Wall took third in his age group at the Wrentham Halloween Duathlon.

And last but not least, Carrie Mosher has been killing it in Cyclocross this season, racing at least once almost every weekend, if not twice, usually with a top-10 finish, Noah Manacas has had some great CX races this season, and Jess Douglas gave the sport a go, with terrific results in her first-ever cross race.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!