Nahant Pancake Classic 5k

Hungry for victory. And by victory I mean pancakes.

By James Deluca

3/1/2009

The electronic buzz of my alarm clock pierced a dream I was having—I don’t remember what the dream was about but I can tell you it wasn’t about my thumbs going numb with cold while running. I pried my eyes open and looked over at the blurry red numbers: 6:20.

“Where were you back when I was supposed to get up for Mill City?” I asked the alarm clock as I slapped at it to silence the buzzer.

It was Sunday morning and I had been off from work for the past two weeks. I looked out my bedroom window, half hopeful that there would be too much snow on the ground to get my car down to Nahant. It was one of those days when I question why I do this to myself. I didn’t have an answer. I also didn’t have breakfast; I was heading to the Nahant Pack 50 Cub Scout Pancake Classic 5k.

I got down to Nahant about half an hour before the race was scheduled to start and was immediately impressed with the organization that went into this race. There were signs all along the main road heading to the school letting you know you were going the right way to get to the race. I signed up and pinned my number 20 to my Wicked singlet.

“Twenty runners so far,” I thought to myself as I looked around the elementary school gymnasium where they were doing registration. “I’ve got a chance to win this thing!”

A few minutes later Dave Long showed up and registered at number 22…and I thought to myself: “Twenty-two runners…I’ve got a chance to come in second at this thing!”

Joining Dave and I was John McDonough who was wearing number 11. While we were standing around the start line Dave pointed to the one guy in a short sleeve shirt and said, “That’s the guy who’s going to win.”

There were around 44 runners who showed up for the race and right around 8:30 they shouted “Go” at the start line and off we went.

Within the first quarter mile Dave took the lead with me and two other runners establishing a chase pack in close pursuit. Around one mile in I pushed forward to pull even with Dave, hoping to push the pace a little bit to shake off on or both of the other runners that were with us because neither of them seemed willing to lead even when Dave tried to drop back and let the guy in the short sleeve shirt and tights set the pace.

My move did not end up working. Within the next half mile the course took a gradual left turn up into one of the neighborhoods and shot straight up a fairly steep hill. When I say the course shot straight up that hill I mean the course…and Dave. Dave shot up the hill, my own ascent would be described as plodded slowly up the hill. Dave quickly built about a twenty meter lead by the top of the hill; I fell about ten to fifteen meters behind the second place runner. After cresting the hill the other two runners surged ahead and caught up with Dave on the downhill. I did my best to hang on and at least keep Dave’s bright orange hat in sight. I never made up that ground I lost on that hill but kept back about the same distance until about half a mile from the end of the race.

By that point the race had turned into a real race to the finish. One of the two runners who had been between Dave and me had dropped back about half the distance between us but the other runner; the one in the short sleeves had pushed forward and was running even with Dave. When the two of them took the last left turn about fifteen meters from the finish line I still didn’t know who was going to take the win.

When I took the turn to head into the shoot the first thing that caught my attention was that there wasn’t a clock. I ran down the shoot not knowing my time and collapsed on the sidewalk after exchanging high fives with the other three runners that were in. About 45 seconds later the fifth runner came in and then the race got interesting.

After a few minutes of no runners coming in the sixth place runner came heading down the hill straight into the shoot with a full head of steam. What was interesting about this was that the race course didn’t come down that hill. The race course came up a side street and was supposed to turn left to come into the shoot. Within a minute there was merging traffic as runners who had followed that wrong-turn-runner started getting to the shoot at the same time as a group that had followed the regular race course.

John came up the course, the right way, looking strong and taking fifteenth place overall. We gathered for a Wicked group picture and headed over to the hall for the pancake breakfast that was supposed to make this race a classic.

The breakfast did not disappoint. I could go on and on about what they served, but since I’ve already been pretty long winded in this I won’t. I’ll just say that it was the best breakfast I’ve ever had and I’ve been up to the Friendly Toast across the street from the Runner’s Alley in Portsmouth so that’s saying something.

The overall first place awards were bottles of maple syrup…had he known that I’m sure Dave would have out sprinted the other runner. As it was both Dave and I took home certificates and blue ribbons quite similar to the ones they used to give out to kids for reading so many books over the summer when I was in elementary school.

As far as my ratings for the race?

Location: **** I had never run on Nahant, but I’m going to try to make more races down there.

Course: * I enjoyed the course. I really did. There were some challenging hills and some fast straight aways. That said I can’t give them a good rating if half the runners didn’t know where the course went. I’m also docking them a star on this one for not having professional timing at a 5k that costs $25.00.

Volunteers: ** If they had volunteers at the intersections perhaps fewer runners would have gotten lost.

Post-Race: ***** The location for the post race party was about as well marked as the course but once you found it the food was excellent.

I guess that averages out to three stars which sounds pretty average to me out of five stars but I’ll be back next time. It’s a Pancake Classic and that breakfast made up for any issues I had with the race. I would have given them fifty stars for the Post-Race if I had not arbitrarily decided to rate them on a 5 star scale.

Wicked Running Club Results in bold:

1 31 Stefano Piana New York NY Male 37 17:26:00

2 22 David Long Beverly MA Male 35 17:28:00

4 20 James DeLuca Beverly MA Male 25 18:03:00

15 11 John McDonough Nahant MA Male 46 26:48:00