Monthly Archive for August, 2011

Salem, MA selected as a RRCA Runner Friendly Community!

Published on August 30, 2011 in Road Runners Club of America. 0 Comments

On August 30, the Road Runners Club of America released the names of the communities for the 2nd round of their Runner Friendly Community program. We are happy to announce that our home base of Salem, Massachusetts was selected as a RRCA Runner Friendly Community!

Below you will find links to the official press release, letters of of recommendation from community leaders, a summary of what makes Salem a Runner Friendly Community and the video that was created to promote Salem as a Runner Friendly Community. Congrats Salem!

Offical Press Release from William Dyson, Program Director, Road Runners Club of America

Letters of Recommendation

Kimbery Driscoll: Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts

Shari Hewson: Co-President, Wicked Running Club

Alison Phelan: Co-President, Wicked Running Club

Doug Bollen: Director, Salem Park, Recreation & Community Services

Ashely Steves and Brandi/Steve Dion: B&S Fitness Programs

Salem, MA – In Salem, the Wicked Running Club, along with other organizations in the city, have created races for all types of runners and distances, from the annual January 1st Frosty Four Race, to the Cross Country 5k Old Salem Green Race, to the summer WRC Wicked Kidz Race and to the Annual Wild Turkey Race, among others—there’s a race for every type of runner.

Salem offers running services to their youth as well, including: Summer Youth Track Club which attracts more than 50 kids a year, all ages track meet held each summer at the Salem High School track, and the Wicked Kidz half and full mile run at Forest River Park.

The Wicked Half Marathon, which started in 2007 with close to 400 runners, has tripled in size over the past five years.  On Halloween Weekend, Salem is host to the Devils Chase 6.66-miler.  Just in its second year, the 6.66m race has become a world-wide destination race.  They’ve also added two new races for the 2011 calendar including the Black Cat 10/20miler in March and the Extreme 5K Urban run with 15 obstacles throughout the city in June.

Salem’s signature race, the Wild Turkey 5 Mile Run on Thanksgiving Day benefits youth programs at Salem park & Recreation and the Boys & Girls Club.  It’s the largest race on the North Shore, with more than 1,500 participants.  In January 2010, Salem introduced the first ever North Shore snowshoe race at Olde Salem Greens gold course.  At the time, it was the largest snow shoe race in New England and second largest ever in the Northeast.  Learn more about Salem through this video.

Community leaders who provided support and letter of recommendation include Alison Phelan, Co-President, Wicked Running Club; Doug Bollen, Director, Park, Recreation & Community Services; Brandi, Steve, and Ashley of B&S Fitness Programs; Kimberly Driscoll, Mayor of Salem; and Shari Hewson, Co-President of the Wicked Running Club.

Wicked Grand Prix Results Derby Street + Lynn Woods Relay

Published on August 29, 2011 in Grand Prix Race. 0 Comments

By Rich Tabbut

Co-Grand Prix Coordinator

Wicked had a great week between the Derby Street Mile and the Lynn Woods Relay recently! Since the events were so close together, I have combined the results on the documents that have been downloaded to Wicked Grand Prix Series on the website. Tim has updated the picture that appears on the top of the page as well.

We had an amazing 75 Wicked Members come out and support Doug Bollen by participating in the Derby Street Mile! Members picked up lots of medals and many came home with some nice raffle prizes as well. The weather was pretty good for this time of year and it was nice to see entire families run together in this event. The Adams family from Beverly had 6 members run the Family mile and their ages ranged from 4 years to 38 years old.

Kerry Phelan did an outstanding job, with a little help from her friends, organizing 14 teams for the Lynn Woods Relay. I find that relays are the events that club members enjoy the most and this was no exception. It’s even better when every member who ran got the club to pay the entry fee and free dinner afterwards. We doubled the team points to 20 for everyone who ran and 50 points goes towards the individual series for each participant.

I’m happy to announce that about 50% of the entire club has run in the 2011 Grand Prix series, 144 members! I was amazed to see our pregnant club member Caitlyn Gaglione run the entire relay course and she is the leading scorer in the Women’s Open Division in the Grand Prix Series. That’s what makes this club really special, how we support each other every day.

Please e-mail any corrections to me at welshhammer@gmail.com. The corrections will appear in the next series results. The next race in the series is your choice of the Run the Goose 7K or the Around the Cape 25K on Monday, September 5th at 9 am at the O’Maley Middle School in Gloucester, MA. We wanted to give everyone the chance to run as many race distances as possible in this series. Marathoner types can run the challenging beautiful 25K course around Cape Ann. Runners who like a combination road/cross country adventure can run the only 7K event in the local area. The races will be scored exactly the same for the series, so take your choice.

See you at the races!

For the complete schedule of Grand Prix races please visit the Wicked Grand Prix page.

Derby Street + Lynn Woods Relay Team Results

Derby Street + Lynn Woods Relay Division Results

Derby Street + Lynn Woods Relay All Results

Wicked picks up lots of hardware at Lynn Woods Relay!

Published on August 25, 2011 in Grand Prix Race and Lynn Woods Relay. 0 Comments

After entering only 5 teams last year in the Lynn Woods Relay, the Wicked Running Club came back with a vengeance posting a club record 14 teams! A solid effort by everyone from Wicked produced some amazing results. 5 out of the 14 teams came away with division awards including Wicked Old School which took home top honors in the Seniors Men division.

Below are the results from the 2011 Lynn Woods Relay. Congratulations to everyone from Wicked who ran!

Lynn Woods 10 Mile Relay    
 
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Salty Men’s Open 3/5
Erich O’Neil 14:57 14:57
Dave Long 29:53 14:56
Mike Smith 44:40 14:47
Scott Carrier 1:00:36 15:56
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Witches Women’s Open 3/26
Annie Rose Willis 17:40 17:40
Wendi Marciano 37:50 18:18
Catalina Dominick 54:36 17:17
Annie Rose Willis 1:11:41 18:56
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Wood Nymphs Women’s Open 10/80
Angel Green 24:57 24:57
Susan Keezer 52:54 27:57
Amber Woolfenden 1:22:07 29:13
Domenica Ruta 1:44:29 22:22
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked 4-Some Plus 1 Womens Open 12/82
Jen Murack 25:32 25:32
Caitilin Gaglione 57:04 31:32
Steph Hagyard 1:26:40 29:36
Alison Phelan 1:52:12 25:32
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Wild Co-Eds Co-Ed 4/22
Melissa Jaynes 19:39 19:39
Mike Toomey 36:05 16:26
Jules Gouthro 54:47 18:42
Tim Short 1:10:20 15:33
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Woodsy Co-Ed 6/33
Nicole McGuinness 22:20 22:20
John Mahoney 37:10 14:50
Christine Nawn 58:57 21:47
Aaron Toleos 1:16:24 17:27
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Wanderers Co-Ed 7/35
Craig Stone 17:07 17:07
William Jackson 33:09:00 16:02
Cimbria Dominick 55:16:00 22:07
Leanee Nagle 1:17:17 22:00
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Taken for Granite Co-Ed 15/58
Chris Nolin 16:17 16:17
Colin Doherty 36:00 19:43
Marisa Rodriguez 1:01:13 25:13
Mary Bruno 1:25:33 24:20
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Moss Stomping Mixers Co-Ed 17/65
Denise Murphy 20:16 20:16
Michele Campbell 44:53 24:37
Jason Carraro 1:09:27 24:34
Anthony Gaglione 1:28:57 19:30
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Masters of the Woods Masters Men 4/11
Brad Gates 16:03 16:03
Mike Higgins 33:01 16:58
Chip Tuttle 50:29 17:28
John Ayers 1:05:04 14:35
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Warlocks Masters Men 7/44
Louis Chinappi 21:08 21:08
Kenny Hewson 42:47 21:39
Don Galluci 1:02:59 20:12
Tim Clarke 1:22:10 19:11
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Wild Wonders Masters Women 2/62
Alison Phelan 20:09 20:09
Shari Hewson 43:20 23:11
Debbie Shahidi 1:06:11 22:51
Dawn Cobak 1:26:46 20:35
     
Team Category Division/Overall
Wicked Old School Seniors Men 1/25
Rich Tabbut 17:14 17:14
Chris Burbridge 37:50 20:36
Glenn Diamond 54:36 16:46
Rick Marciano 54:36 17:05
     
Team Name Category Division/Overall
Wicked Awesome Seniors Women 2/74
Caron Weiner 25:05 25:05
Dorthy Preston 48:48 23:43
Marie Gesnaldo 1:15:08 26:20
Donna Greenberg 1:37:40 22:32

Grand Prix results updated! Yankee Homecoming Road Races

Published on August 8, 2011 in Grand Prix Race. 0 Comments

By Rich Tabbut

Co-Grand Prix Coordinator

The 54th edition of the Newburyport Yankee Homecoming 10 mile road race saw 43 members of Wicked create our own sea of red for the Tuesday night classic. Dave Long was the first Wicked finisher in 1:03:59 followed by former club president Tim Short at 1:04:40 running on his favorite course. Annie Rose Willis prepared for Sunday’s Providence Rock n Roll Half Marathon by winning the female division in 1:13:27. Brad Gates showed his comeback is on track by finishing the course 1:14:03. T.R. screamed at all of us as we charged up the last hill giving our finishing kicks further inspiration!

We had six new members join the series so our total participants now stand at 119 for the year. Team Cougar continues to lead the team series at 260 points with the Lynx in hot pursuit at 240 points. Billy Jackson’s lead over Chris Nolan has narrowed to 4 points in the male division for the year. Wendi Marciano holds a 42 point lead over Annie Rose Willis in the female competition.

On an administrative note, I would like to ask our members to do the Grand Prix Scoring machine (me) a big favor. Whenever you run a Grand Prix (or any) race for our club, please write down “Wicked Running Club” in the field where it asks for the club name on the race application.  Also, please write down our USATF club number “266” for United States Track and Field events. The reason for this is that I have to look over the entire results for every Grand Prix Series race to make sure I get everyone. In the case of Newburyport, there were 1,255 finishers. I look for “Wicked Running Club” under the “Club” column on Cool Running to identify our finishers in every race.  There is another reason it would have helped our club in this race.  Newburyport had a club team competition at this race. We would have won the Male Masters’ Team Crown if all our members had listed “Wicked Running Club’ on their applications. Thanks in advance for doing this in the future!!

Please e-mail any corrections to me at welshhammer@gmail.com. The corrections will appear in the next series results. The next race in the series is the Derby Street Mile is on Friday, August 19th at 7 pm starting at Fort Ave. (near Salem Willows) in Salem, MA. You don’t get the chance to race the one mile distance very often so I highly recommend the race. The next race in the series following the mile is the famous Lynn Woods Relay on Wednesday, August 24th.  The club pays the entry fee for the relay, so it’s free to all our members. As Kerry Phelan has kindly mentioned on the webpage and thru e-mails, every member will automatically get 50 individual points and 20 team points for running in the race. If that’s not enough, the club will be going out afterwards and all pizza and soft drinks will be paid for by Wicked. Don’t worry, wherever we choose to go will also offer beer as well in bountiful quantities.

See you at the races!

For the complete schedule of Grand Prix races please visit the Wicked Grand Prix page.

Wicked Nominates Salem as a Runner Friendly Community! Updated

Published on August 7, 2011 in Road Runners Club of America. 0 Comments

Update:

Back in May we annouced that the Wicked Runing Club nominated Salem, MA as a Road Runners Club of America Runner Friendly Community. Well, we are getting closer to finding out if Salem was selected. Word on the street is that we should all find out within the next few weeks. While we wait, check out the nomination video and cross your fingers!

Post from May 2, 2011:

Everyone on the North Shore knows about the great races that Salem has to offer along with the amazing running routes around the city.  The running community also has an outstanding level support from the local government, businesses, non-profit organizations.

Of course the Wicked Running Club plays a huge part in all of this as well! But let’s not forget about the other great running club in Salem – Max Potential Training and Racing.

Check out the RRCA Runner Friendly Community website to learn more about this fantastic program created by the RRCA.

Thank you to Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, Salem Park & Recreation & Community Services Director Doug Bollen, Wicked Running Club Co-Presidents Alison Phelan/Shari Hewson and B&S Fitness for writing letters of support for this nomination.

Salem is truly a great city for runners of all abilites and ages. GO SALEM!

Below is the video that was produced to go along with the RRCA Runner Friendly Community application. Be sure to share with everyone you know!