According to local folklore, the Greater Lowell Road Runners, who organize the Bay State marathon, are in cahoots with Mother Nature. Apparently the deal is that whatever the weather is before or after the race doesn’t matter, because Mother Nature always makes sure the weather is perfect during the race.
This year, however, anxious Bay Staters were greeted race morning with torrential downpours and high winds. It was beginning to look like the GLRR’s pact with Mother Nature had been terminated. However, with about an hour to go before the race, the Grand Old Dame of weather decided it was time to turn off the faucet, shut off the fan, adjust the thermostat to a comfortable 55 degrees and viola -- perfect marathoning weather, again!
Glen Guillementte, of West Warwick, RI, wasted little time in taking advantage of the favorable conditions. By the eighth mile of the race, he had taken the lead for good. “I’m an old man chasing a young man’s dream,” related the thirty-five year old. Guillementte dream of qualifying for the Olympic Trials Marathon unfortunately slipped away missing the mark by one short minute . “I probably had a little bit more than I gave,” he said. “I got discourage around nineteen miles. I made a miscalculation in my head. I thought I had missed it [19 mile marker] and was off pace by a minute,” he continued. That slight error in calculation caused Guillementte to get discouraged. By the time he realized his mistake, it was 23 miles into the race and to late to do anything about it.
Chasing Guillementte from mile eleven to the finish was Dave Beauley of Hudson, NH. Beauley could see Guillementte most of the way but couldn’t close the distance. “ I had target acquisition, but didn’t have the poop,” said Beauley. Following Beauley, in third place, was Bryne Decker of Londonderry, NH. Beauley was keeping close track of Decker’s progress getting reports from the 3 mile point. Although Beauley was four minutes off his personal best, he didn’t seem disappointed because he met his goal of running a sub 2:30 time. His effort was quite impressive considering he won last weekend’s Applefest Half Marathon and ran the Montreal Marathon just a month earlier.
The women’s division was never in danger on being contested as Mary Ellen Kelly took the lead from the start and literally ran away with the race. Kelly, who wanted to run 2:43:30, came up a few minutes short of her goal. “I ran the first half in a nice pack, it was super,” Kelley said. During the second half of the race she was mostly alone. “It was real windy on the other side. I’ve got to talk to [race director] Bill Smith about that,” Kelly joked. Despite missing her goal by two minutes, she smashed the existing course record of 3:02:46 held by Michelle Bociek of Concord, MA. Kelly is now planning on taking off a few weeks before preparing for the women’s Olympic Trials which, coincidentally, will be held in her home town of Columbia, South Carolina.
The Bay State race enjoyed its best year ever in terms of entries. Over 3000 runners entered the combined Marathon and Half-Marathon. About 900 in half-marathon and the remainder entered in the marathon. The first 100 finishers broke the 3 hour barrier. From the looks of jubilation on the faces of many of the marathon finishers, it’s probably safe to say that the official field for next year’s Boston Marathon increased significantly because of Bay State.