Sunday, September 20, 2009

Christmas is Around the Corner


I'm going to take a break from blogging for a few months as I enter my final three week taper for the Steamtown Marathon (October 11) and continue coaching with the Nashua PAL school program (check out our exciting team blog here: http://ledgestreetxc.blogspot.com/ ) and later with our Granite State Flash Junior Olympic program from late October thru mid-December. http://www.granitestateflash.com/ Oh yeah, and I also work.

Something had to give and unfortunately it will be this blog for a few short months. I should be back around Christmas as we begin getting ready for Boston 2010.

I leave you with the Santa Claus statute standing in the woods of my favorite running course in Mont Vernon. I'm not sure but I believe this was purchased from the old Edaville Railroad in Carver, Mass. after it closed in 1991. The park was later re-opened in the late 1990's as a heritage theme park. Don't ask me how it made its way from Massachusetts to its current place in the woods of New Hampshire or how it has remained standing for so many years but it was great having Santa waving at me as my only fan on many a long run.

Posted by Mike Merra at 8:50 PM  

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Monday, September 7, 2009

St. Charles Childrens Home 5k






There are plenty of local road races devoted to worthy causes but the St. Charles Children’s Home 5k race has got to be at the top of the list. The St. Charles Children Home in Rochester, founded in 1945 by the Grey Nuns of Canada was originally an orphanage and now serves as a group placement home under the direction of New Hampshire Catholic Charities for children from families in crisis. The home is staffed by Daughters of Mary, Mother of Healing Love. During the summer of 1996, the children’s running program at St. Charles was developed to help the children cope with the stress and anger accompanying placement and separation issues. The home’s philosophy is that running acts as a natural antidepressant and ultimately enables the enhancement of each child’s self esteem. The program has attracted national media attention, here is a short video link to a CBS Morning story on St. Charles back in 2006: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2042470n&tag=related;photovideo

We’ve run 12 out of the 13 St. Charles races. The race was originally held at Spaulding High School in Rochester but due to the size of the field the race was moved to Pease International Tradeport. The last 6 or 7 years we’ve made it an unofficial mini-family reunion with my parents along with my sisters Anne and JJ, their husbands and eight children usually attending or running the race. Today we also had a number of Granite State Flash runners (Ben Platt, Ethan Platt, Jake Rowell, Brett Quinn) competing led by Justin (pictured above) and Jan Platt. Cathy ran a great race finishing 3rd overall in 18:34 despite running 22 miles Saturday. I do not recover from long runs nearly as fast as my better half as my quads were cooked from the start and I didn't even attempt to stay with her and finished in 19:00. My sister Anne looked very strong (see picture above) finishing 25:51 accompanied by my nephew William (to her left) who ran unofficially as he is competing in his first year running cross country for St. Thomas Aquinas in Dover. Last but not least was my nephew Jonathan Donovan, our Ethiopian speedster (in his basketball high tops) who took it out hard in the children’s race.

Posted by Mike Merra at 11:06 PM  

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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Boston Marathon 2009 Slideshow

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while starting today. I've enjoyed the blog but today I started coaching with the Nashua PAL school program and will coach the Granite State Flash youth boys from late October until mid-December. I am also running more than 70 miles/week getting ready for my October 11, 2009 marathon in Scranton, Pennsylvania, so, combined with family and work responsibilities, I need to put this blog (temporarily) on the shelf. I hope to pick it up again after the Flash season ends in December and we begin training for Boston 2010. I might however put up a post next Monday after the St. Charles Children Home race in Portsmouth which we've done 11 years in a row as well as a short post after my October marathon.

As I temporarily close up shop, here is a 10 minute slideshow I put together from the 113th Boston Marathon on April 20, 2009. The photos are from a variety of sources including family, friends as well as online sources. I did my best to include our Granite State Flash and Gate City Strider runners. I apologize in advance to those runners who were not included...I literally spent hours online looking for photos of everyone I knew who was running.

Posted by Mike Merra at 10:24 PM  

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