Weekly Back Cove Series! No Free Shoes, but you'll love it!

Okay.....beautiful weather, folks chomping at the bit and a free 5K every weds night! What formula do you need to bring out people for an old fashioned, line em up and get a time every Wednesday night from May 14th thru September 10th??? Not much! The 6th annual Weekly Back Cove Series brought out the running community with 109 participants! Last year our biggest group was 109 in August!

4 years OK 4 (four), (yea! that's right, 4 runners!) showed up for the 1st run of this annual event which is a great asset to the Portland Running Community! Stu Palmer, Maine Running, Portland Trails, Maine Track Club, Mizuno, RunToWin and the Portland Parks Department are all involved in making this event happen by donating, supporting and organizing. You can now register on line at www.mainerunning.com and when I opened pre-registration, there were 56 entries and 1/2 didn't even show up! Dan Franek won in 17:21, with Katie Davisson winning the women's in 19:44 to take the early series lead. Men and Women with the fastest average time over any 6 races win a years supply (4 pair) of Mizuno Footwear. Also, this year the Maine Track Club will sponsor a community spirit award, which will honor a participating individual or individuals who represent the "Community Spirit" of the Back Cove Seris for commitment, improvement, determination and dedication to the event! Could be volunteer or a runner who exemplifies improvement or commitment over the series.

Maine Running Community has their share of leaders in the running industry, Mark Grandonico was just voted as the Eastern Region Director for the Road Runners Club of America. Mark's tireless contributions, dedication and commitment to the Maine Track Club and Road Racing, is well worth noting and we are fortunate to have him in our own community...congrats! Mark. Howard Spear, Race Director for the Maine Marathon and the Portland Sea Dogs 5K, was all smiles this past Sunday, as the Sea Dogs 5K is now the largest 5K in the State! Beautiful weather brought out 400+ race day registrants and 1,906 finishers with 2,203 participants. Howard, as always, does a terrific job of organizing and creating a great event.

New products at Maine Running include Vibram's Five Fingers (Time Magazine's Best of Innovation, 2007). The product is designed to mimick barefoot running and advocate TC Hazzard regularly run's races in them. Check out www. vibramfivefinger.com for more information.

The Spring Running Season is off to a tremendous start and we're only just beginning! Get out there and enjoy the weather and remember.....Run Happy!