Gate City Striders

The Baystate Marathon – 8:00am – Oct 18th - Lowell, MA

32 GCS-Triad Racing Team members made the quick trip down the Merrimack River to Lowell for the 21st annual Baystate Marathon which served as the site for the final NEGP race of the year. As expected, our teams and individual team members ran well and placed high on the day.  Mark Engerman finished 5^th in his age group out of 317, Ken Snow finished 4^th out of 159 and Cathy Merra claimed the 1^st place crown out of 50 in her age group. Our Mens Seniors Team finished 5^th out of 15, Womens Open Team was  4^th out of 16, Mens Masters Team 2^nd out of 19 & Womens Masters Team took home the New England Marathon Championship trophy finishing 1^st out of 8! Our Teams were so successful that the $900 in prize money that they earned almost equaled the runner entry fees paid for by the club for this race!

Baystate was the last of seven 2009 New England Grand Prix Races and Mark Engerman was our fastest male runner. He finished in a time of 2:44:49 (6:18 pace) which was good enough for 27th place overall (out of 1562) and first on the Men’s Masters Team ahead of Kevin McIntyre (2:52:24) and Richard Sparks (3:26:49). Tyler Brannen was the next fastest GCS-Triad runner after Kevin finishing in a time of 3:06:02 which was enough to hold off Dan Ferreira (3:20:40) & Sujith Kana (3:50:10) for first place on the Men’s Open Team. Ken Snow finished first on the Men’s Seniors Team with a time of 3:13:21 outpacing Peter Davenport (3:30:05) & Len Hall (3:31:32). And, John Lewicke led the way for the Mens Veterans Team again with a time of 3:50:19 which was good enough for first on the team ahead of Samy El-Guebaly (4:17:19)

On the womens side, Cathy Merra capped off an amazing season with another awesome run here in Lowell. Cathy completed the 2-loop river run in a time of 3:11:37 which was good enough for 1st overall in her 50-59 age group and first on the Womens Seniors Team ahead of Andrea Pierce (4:00:57). After Cathy was Amber Ferreira (Cullen) who finished just behind her new hubby Dan in 3:20:48. Her time was fast enough to edge out Kristen King (3:26:49) and Lauren Eynation (3:27:43) for first place on the Womens Open Team. Karen Pattelena finished first on the Womens Masters Team with a time of 3:21:30 ahead of Terry Prouty (3:28:33) & Janice Platt (3:35:03).

Full GCS-Triad Racing Team results for the Baystate Marathon can be found on our website here. Complete race results including pictures can be found on the Coolrunning website here. And, individual race reports from GCS team members can be found here.

Gate City had a very successful 2009 New England Grand Prix campaign. Our Club finished in second place (unofficially) out of 28 teams in the Series. 65 point behind Whirlaway and 6 points ahead of CMS (and everybody else). GCS had 4 Iron runners (who completed all 7 races). They are: John Green, John Lewicke, Karen Pattelena & Jim Velino. And, we had 112 different club members run at least one of the seven NEGP races with us this year. Complete 2009 NEGP Intra-team Competition results can be found here.

The 2010 NEGP race presentation meeting will be held on Nov 2^nd at Brandeis University in Waltham, Ma at 7:00pm. And, 3 slates of 7 races each will be selected for on-line voting for USATF members from Nov 9–16 with results posted on Nov 17. Check out our Club Calendar more information!