No Bananas July Race!!!...

We might be goin' bananas! 

We're changing the No Bananas 5k 

to the second Sunday this month and next!  

No Bananas 5k 

Sunday, June 12th

8:30 am

on the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail

in Chelmsford Center

 Sorry to all of you who already had this on your calendar in pen.  Some of our biggest fans (okay, let us just imagine there are fans of this race series) are participating in the awesome Middlesex Community Bike Challenge this Sunday.  You too should join them!  Look for more information at http://www.middlesex.mass.edu/events/bike_challenge/

In July we are running this race on Sunday, July 10th so as to avoid mixing up finish lines with the annual John Carson Chelmsford Fun Run.

For those of you who have yet to join this crazy bunch, here is a refresher:

This is a low-key fun 5k run.  You might ask, how low is low-key? No entry fee. No official time.  No t-shirt. No official sponsers. No water at the finish line. No bananas. Just a fun 5k! 

Here are some questions that are frequently, or not so frequently asked:

Where do I go for this crazy race?

We run on the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford Center.  We most often park at Center Sports at 11 Cushing Place in Chelmsford.  This is right off of 110 in Chelmsford Center.  You could also park at the Bertucci/Java Room Ginger Ale Plaza at 14 Littleton Rd.  The start line is right behind Bertuccis.  Walk to the end of the plaza (by the bank) and there is a set of stairs that will lead you right to the starting line.  Don't look for the crowds of runners.  Look for a tall skinny guy and a "race director" holding a pad of paper and a wrist watch. Remember, low key.

What do I wear?

The answer to this question is obviously dependent on the time of year you ask it.  Prepare for the worst as there won't be a warming hut or volunteers to throw a foil blanket over you at the end of the race.  You can however warm up or cool down at the Java Room after the race with hot cocoa or ice coffee. 

What should I bring?

Friends!  Oh, and you might want to bring a stop watch.  You never know when I might forget mine at home.  Or bring friends who have stop watches.  Friends are good.  Bring lots of them.

Am I expected to run fast?

If this excludes having fun, then absolutely not.  Have a good time.  Come each month and run a bit faster each time.  Cheer on your friends and other competitors (who will soon become friends).  No one has volunteered or is getting paid to cheer so we've got to take care of this ourselves.

Will my name be in the paper if I run fast enough?

This is all dependent on whether or not our esteemed press manager Mr. Patrick Cook comes to the race.  I encourage you to write your own press release and send it in to the local press if Pat chooses to sleep in.  This should by no means encourage you to run any faster than necessary.

Will my time be listed on Cool Runnings?

This question cracks me up the most. Again, remember low key.  One of these days I may remember to send in the times to Cool Runnings. I do keep record of all times on a very professional pad of lined paper.  I'm always happy to send you your times.  Just shoot me an email.

Will the race always be on the first Sunday of each month?

Yes, at 8:30.  Why 8:30?  The Java Room opens at 9:00.  Enough said.

What happens if the race director doesn't show up?

You should run anyway.  The whole reason I came up with this silly thing was to get a race in every month.  My plan is to be there rain or shine.  If I'm not there, you should run without me and have fun.  Don't forget to have fun.

How can I get the word out about this fabulous race series?

Forward this message or send me your friends emails and I will send them an "official" invitation.  Also consider sharing the race blogspot at http://nobananasraceseries.blogspot.com.  No worries, this is as high tech as we are going to get.

Does "No Bananas" suggest anything more than the fact that you do not hand out free bananas at the end of the race?

I'm a bit concerned with how many men have asked me this question.  Really guys. "No Bananas" means only that the yellow fruit will not be freely available after the race. 

How did this email ever start coming to me and how can I stop getting this thing sent to me every month?

Hmmm...that's a hard one.  You probably mentioned to a friend of a friend that you like running or imagined yourself doing a 5k at some point in your life.  You can always send me a request to drop you from the esteemed group of athletes who receive this invitation each month.  Before you do this however, you might want to join us for a run and check out this crazy bunch at the monthly No Bananas Race series.

COME JOIN US!

Oh Reuben how I miss you so! Happy 30th!

Every year on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend I get a little homesick for Southern Wisconsin.  Wait, "a little" might be a slight understatement.  Each year the Whalen Clan gathers for Reuben's Run, a small 5k race that raises funds to supports an alcohol-free post Prom for a rural high school in Albany, Wisconsin.  Although I haven't been able to run it in over 15 years, it never gets easier to miss.  Each year, many members of my family gather to run the out-and-back 5k on the rolling hills of Green County.  Every year, more and more Whalens and Whalen-friends join the team Whalen's Grocery named after the general store my grandfather and his parents once owned in the center of town.  I think if you asked any of the runners to describe this fabulous race, they would probably laugh and ask you which race you were referring to.  As far as races, it lacks the fabulous tech t-shirts, bonus bags, post-race dance party and beer tent.  But what it lacks in giveaways, it makes up in tradition and heart.  This is why I was feeling so blue Saturday morning at 8:30 am CST.

Reuben's Run may be where my love for the running was born.  I probably wasn't even 10-years-old when I ran my first Reuben's, and I ran every year until my junior year of college.  Every year my aunt Mary would pick my siblings and me up before the sun was up, pile us into her blue Cadillac, one that included automatic locks and windows, and encourage us to the starting line.  My older, very cool cousins would always appear, sometime after the race director started the race, hoping no one else had entered their age bracket.  The race was never about how fast you could run but whether or not you could run faster than that person who just might be in your age group. Collecting hardware as a Whalen was far outweighed the race t-shirt donning a scary picture of a guy named Reuben.

Who is Reuben? I am going to have to answer this question based on my childhood memory, as my recent research on Reuben was tremendously disappointing.  I believe the legend goes that Reuben was an infamous citizen on Albany who lived long ago in a caves along the Sugar River and hunted deer with his bare hands.  My Grandma Ruth and cousins used to scare my twin sister and me with stories of Reuben's ghost.  I imagine these stories always made me run a little bit faster.

I would like to congratulate Reuben's Run on turning 30 this year and once again ruining a perfectly lovely first day of my Memorial Day Weekend.  Reuben's Run, like so many small town races, isn't about the speed, the course, or even the hardware.  It is about sharing a run with the ones you love.

Massachusetts Inaugural Race to the Beach 2011!

Now that I am almost fully recovered, I think I'm ready to sign up for RTB 2011.  What a great relay...200 miles of pure...wait, 203 miles of exhausting fun.

My team, Dude, where's my van? started early at 8:30 am at Mt. Wachusetts in Princeton, Massachusetts.  We weren't surprised to be one of the first heats.  We had no delusions of speed nor grandeur. Our philosophy, if you can't bring the speed you better bring the tutus.

Jan reminding us that we must not forget safety.
Proper reflective gear only enhances the look.

This is the end of my first leg.  I started around 3:00 and averaged a 9:25 mile on the 6.11 mi. leg.  Not bad since I assumed I would average closer to 10:00. The route gave me a beautiful tour of Berlin and it was fun to see so many towns where my students live.  We are lucky that spring was so late this year as all the flowering trees looked as good as we did.

My second leg started near Wrentham at 12:00 am and was supposed to be 8.11 miles.  I had managed to eat well and nap throughout the afternoon so I was feeling really good.  The first couple miles were really dark and it was challenging to navigate the fog with the headlamp. I finally just ran with my lamp in my hand and was happy to get on a main road two miles in.  My legs felt great and I couldn't have asked for better weather.  Four miles in and I hear "on your right" and out of nowhere a runner flies by me.  He kindly said, "Lookin' good." as he made me "roadkill".  This didn't discourage me, as I knew that we would start getting passed consistently over the next 16 hours.  I learned later that his team had started at 2:30 pm.  Again, tutus, not speed.

At mile 6.25, Charles, our fearless captain met me with water.  I was feeling great and ready to end the run in about 15 minutes.  My time looked solid and I was excited that we had managed to shave nearly a half hour off our projected time.  About a half mile later I was met by a driver of a pickup truck asking me why I was running in the middle of the night.  I answer him quickly and kept running, assuming I would be done in a mere 10 minutes.  Ten minutes later I got interrupted again by another truck of questionably sober teenagers asking me what I was up to.  I begin to run faster as my adrenaline kicked.  I think it took me another half mile to realize I hadn't seen a race arrow for a very long time. At this point I ran for another couple minutes looking for directions and then turned back in search of yellow signs.  I think I must of run over three additional miles in search of my wrong turn.  Fortunately Charles found me at my original wrong step and told me to get in the van. I refused insisting I would finish the leg on my own legs.  I managed to totally blow our cushion as well as scare the tutus off my team. They were great sports about it and in the end it made for an interesting story.

I was able to crash in the van for the next few hours thanks to our excellent navigational crew Charles and Andrea.  My final leg started at about 9:00 am on Saturday.  It was 5.85 miles and felt twice as long as my night leg.  It was all mental and all I can really say about it is that I ran it all, barely. I must have been passed by at least ten runners.  In the end it was great to be done and I was ready to cheer on the rest of my team.

Here we are in Westport waiting for our final runner.  We ran 11 runners instead of 12.  This worked out well as we had a bunch of generous team members willing to pull extra miles at the end.  Three of our final runners each ran four legs, their final legs being the hottest and sunniest ones of the entire race. Thanks Ed, Bob and Randy!

We got to all run in together at the end. I have absolutely no idea 

what this runner was going in this short other than giving us a visual 

for what we feared might happen at the finish line.

Thanks to "Dude! Where's my van?" for being part of a great weekend.  A special thanks to Charles for organizing us and Andrea for roping me into this crazy plan.  For me running is about challenging myself and getting to know new people. RTB definitely provided that venue and I look forward to running with these dudes again soon.

It's time I get started

As my dear seniors of the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School Class of 2011 near graduation, it is about time I start my own senior project product.  Every school year I have the honor of working closely with a small group of seniors on their senior projects.  I get to learn about all kinds of crazy topics from the culture of ski bums, watchmaking, Brazilian favelas, to the psychology of serial killers.  This year I proposed my own senior project around the essential question "How can I become a faster runner?"  While I was not nearly as successful as my students on the research and product portions of the project, I did make tremendous strides in both becoming a faster runner and completing the benefit requirements of the project.

During the senior project, each senior is required to complete a senior project that includes an essential question, a research project, a product and a benefit. The benefit must be connected to their project topic and benefit others in a small or large way.  My benefit was to design a free race series for area runners.  This idea first came up when I decided that for my product I would run a race each month and demonstrate progress each month.  As my student know me, I can be quite a cheap-skate.  I did the math and realized that the entry fees of these races might add up quickly.  I didn't really want any more race t-shirts and because I have young kids I couldn't always be sure to fit in a race each month if most of them are run during the middle of a weekend morning.  My solution?  I began my own free race series located five minutes from my home the first Sunday of each month.  It would be a free race, early in the morning without any frills. No official time, no race t-shirts, no hardware, no water, no bananas.  Nada.

The No Bananas Race Series is over six months old.  Each month we have had more runners, faster times and more fans.  Most importantly we have had a new 5k runner almost every month.  This is especially exciting for me because when I can help provide an experience for someone to challenge themselves in running farther or faster, then I feel like my running is benefiting others.

So what is the future of this blog if I really should have wrapped up this senior project a couple weeks ago?  I think this blog will be about sharing the monthly race results and exploring how this teacher, mother, runner and race director learns and continues growing through the eternal senior project which is life.

First Ever No Bananas 5K Race in November

May No Bananas 5k Race