- 10 Mile and 5K Road Races – July 30, 2019
A Linda Desjardins/Mike Pelletier collaboration.
Newburyport always toasts runners, both figuratively and literally. There is a lot of crowd support, many formal and informal water stops, hoses set out to spray and cool us as we run. And on this date, we were challenged with a temperature of 92 and dew point of 71. It’s amazing how some of us seek out any shade and just melt in the heat; others seem oblivious to it as they glide through their warmups. Many runners opted to swap from the 10 miler to the 5K because of the weather, and the number of registrations and number of finishers showed many folks opted not to run. But nevertheless, there was still a very commendable showing with 715 finishers in the 10 mile race and 1560 in the 5K race.
Mercifully, when the 5K began at 6PM and the 10 miler at 6:10, there were some patchy clouds and High Street had some beautiful shade-providing trees. There was also a gentle breeze, most welcome! But as internal body temps increased, the comfort level quickly dissipated for many runners and collective groans could be heard among the sweat-drenched runners. Many of us remembered past practice and were eagerly anticipating Freeze Pops at the finish. Ah. Nirvana.
Eight North Shore Striders competed, four in the 10 mile race and four in the 5K.
We were so proud of all our runners as completing the 10 mile race in itself under those conditions is an incredible accomplishment. And our speedster Lauren Hamilton even won her age group, beating out 27 others. Wonderful showings, too, by Rebecca Imperiali, who was 8th of 37 with a fast time, and nice work by Mariellen Hayward and Sally Fowler who also stuck by their plans to finish that race!
Four Striders took on the 5K with some good results as well: Dave Newhall took an age group second followed by Mike Pelletier in third in the 75-79 group. Allie Vered ran a great 9:50 pace coming in 32nd in a group of 91, finishing in the top third of her age group. Linda Desjardins won her 70-74 age group and this time wasn’t the only entry! She ran faster than 10 others.
Mike Pelletier has created a chart which lets us see how well we all did.
| Lauren Hamilton | 1:22:32 | 8:16 | 1st/27 | F5559 |
| Rebecca Imperiali | 1:26:10 | 8:37 | 8/37 | F5054 |
| Mariellen Hayward | 2:03:31 | 12:20 | 15/15 | F6064 |
| Sally Fowler | 2:06:30 | 12:39 | 22/27 | F5559 |
| Allie Vered | 30:32 | 9:50 | 32/92 | F4549 |
| Dave Newhall | 32:09 | 10:21 | 2nd/9 | M7579 |
| Mike Pelletier | 32:20 | 10:25 | 3rd/9 | M7579 |
| Linda Desjardins | 34:23 | 11:04 | 1st/11 | F7074 |
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