Gate City Striders

Michelle Poublon

Michelle Poublon – President
I have been a GCS member since 2003 and board member since 2006. I live in Nashua with my husband, Mike, and children Danielle, Eric and Michael. The first marathon I completed was the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. Since then, I have run 5 marathons: the Vermont City Marathon, the Chicago Marathon (twice), the Boston Marathon, and the Bay State Marathon. My proudest moment was completing the 2004 Chicago Marathon. My worst experience was at the 2005 Boston Marathon in 80+ degree heat, knowing I was in trouble at mile 6. My PR is 3:38:29, which I ran at Bay State in October 2008. My favorite races include the Lake Winnipesaukee Relay and the Mill Cities Relay. My Goals for 2009 are: to improve my half marathon PR and compete in my first triathlon. Things I live for are: my family, the beach, Margaritas, long runs with the Breakfast Club (“hsmrg”), good food, chocolate, and outdoor adventure!

Mark Sage

Mark Sage – Vice President
I was born in England & grew up in a small coastal town. I am married to Marian & we have a daughter Laura & son Tim. My extended family includes three brothers and one sister. I started running when I was aged forty, after having lost about 30 lb in weight. I learned a lot in lose early days, some of it painful but it was the best thing I did as I met a lot of interesting runners / people. My first race was Francestown 5 miler in 1999. My first Marathon was in Hartford, CT. in 2005. My hobbies include: hiking, fly fishing & traveling. My profession is Sales & Marketing with the family business who manufactures PTFE (Teflon) plastics which my father & uncle started in 1955. I have seen the family business grow over the past 30 years into a successful international business. I look forward to assisting Gate City Striders, promoting running & a healthy living style.

Ron Gagnon - Treasurer
 
 

 Oliver McMahon

Oliver McMahon – Secretary
I started running in the Fall of 2008 when my younger daughter told me I should "run a 10K" with her. At the time, I wasn't running more than five minutes at a time on the treadmill. Not wanting to disappoint her, I started training on the treadmill and signed up for the Great Gobbler 2008, Mine Falls Nashua. From my workouts on the treadmill I thought I might be able to do ten minutes per mile. In the excitement of the race I managed to finsih with a 9:28 pace, but I had a thirty minute asthma attack after the finish. Despite that, I was thrilled with the experience and wanted another challenge. I signed up for the Half at the Hamptons. It was only November. February was a long way away, so I figured I had plenty of time to train for it. Needless to say I wasn't really prepared come race day. I ran an 11:34 pace and came in 8th from last. My time was 2:34, but I was overwhelmed to think that I had run 13.1 miles. It was enough to keep me going and get me to sign up for more races. Soon after I hooked up with GCS and started to really learn about running. Members with decades of experience helped me to plot my course to improvement. Running with GCS and attending the track workouts, indoors in the Winter and outdoors in the Summer helped me improve tremendously. I moved to Nashua from the Bronx in 1988. I didn't discover GCS and the wonderfull Mine Falls Park until 2009. I wish I had found them sooner. I started running at 56 and have improved every year so far. I guess it's never too late to start. Background:I grew up on Long Island. I started surfing in 1963. By 1969 I was ranked in the top rank of the Eastern Surfing Association. By 1978 I had been invited to the East Coast Championship twice, though I never won.I graduated from Oceanside High School (Oceanside NY 1970). I obtained a BAA in Art and Education from LIU in 2004. I worked as an exhibit-construction artist until 1985 when I enrolled in the Electrical Engineering program at Manhattan College. I had been working at the Bronx Zoo, building a simulated tropical rain forest in the Wild Asia exhibit. I had become interested in computers. I taught myself to write software and then decided that engineering would provide a more dependable income than art. I was married with one daughter at that time and art wasn't really enough to support us.

 Jonathan Palmer

Jonathan Palmer - Communications
I was born and spent my summers growing up in San Diego, but went through school in Somersworth, NH. I went on to get a chemical engineering degree from Northeastern and spent two years after that working and traveling throughout the US and Europe. I settled down in Nashua in June 2010 and became a Strider in June 2011. I never grew up as a runner. The only running I did was with the lacrosse team in high school, but I always loathed practice runs. For some reason, in 2007, I decided I should run a marathon just to prove to myself that I could do it. My first race ever was the Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon. I finished in 1:48:49. That was the start and end of my 2007 running career. After that I got distracted and decided that running a full marathon is something only crazy people do. I didn’t run again until Northeastern University put on their first Big Dog 5k on the Charles River in September 2008. I finished that 5k in 23:46, and didn’t race again until the 2^nd annual Big Dog 5k coming in at 23:09. When I got to Nashua in 2010, I figured it was time to get more serious as my weight was at an all time high from all the beer, pork and chocolate I consumed in Germany for 4 months. I started training for the half marathon again, running the Silver Strand half in San Diego in November, improving my PR by over 13 minutes. After taking winter 2010/2011 off, getting back into running was very painful. I had heard about the striders through a co-worker so I joined up and really started getting serious. I ran more races in 2011 than all my life combined, and finally completed my 1^st marathon. When I crossed the finish, I said I was never going to do that again. Well, a few days later I started thinking about Boston…

When I’m not running I enjoy traveling, skiing, hiking, yoga, shooting, cooking, reading, and photography. Someday I will find a way to combine all of these activities into one event.

Some PRs: 5k: 20:08, Half: 1:31:52, Full: 3:20:06. I’m looking forward to the 2012 Boston Marathon and actually qualifying in the next year or 2.
 

Trevor Ward

Trevor Ward - Membership
I have been a member of the Striders for about 12 years, back then I was more of a casual runner, not very consistent with my workouts. The last several years I have made running more of a priority and thanks to the coached track workouts I have actually set PR’s for most of my distances in the last 3 years. The GCS track workouts have been great for improving running but also are a nice social event where I have made many friends over the years. The last 4 years I have been very involved with the Fitness U. clinics, it’s great to see the young kids getting started in running, having fun and being fit. I work at Texas Instruments (computer I.C. design stuff) and in my spare time when I am not running I have a studio set up at home where I like to work on my oil paintings (landscapes and still life’s).

Chris Cole – Social / PR
 

Michael Wade

Michael Wade – Competition
I started running when I was an out-of-shape nearly 30 year old who desperately needed a change in lifestyle. “Why not start running again? I couldn’t possibly be any worse at it than when I was in High School, right?” Come to find out it takes significantly more effort to propel a 240lb. body than a 140lb. one! It was at that point that I figured I needed a goal in order to take my mind off the pain that my body was feeling. So, I decided that once I could run a mile without stopping, I’d start training to run Boston. For some reason this seemed like a logical progression to me. Little did I know that my decision would mark the beginning of an odyssey of stunning disappointment and profound joy that is the world of long distance running. 14 years and a 18 marathons later I’m: a proud father of 4 – Casey (19), Erin (17), Emily (4) & Ethan (1), a fortunate husband of Johanne, and a owner of an agonizingly close to sub-3 marathon PR of 3:00:22 . I’ve been a member of the Gate City Striders since we moved to Nashua in 2003. I’m currently the clubs “Competition Coordinator” which is basically a professional way of saying that I’m the chief motivator, communicator & cheerleader for the racing team. In addition to marathons, I enjoy running trail races, cross-country races, mountain races, track races, relay races and road races of any distance (except 5k’s – those really hurt). When I’m not running I sleep. When I’m not sleeping (or running) I like to build stuff, write stories, read stories, climb mountains, take photos, draw pictures and raise children.