September | 2013 | Level Renner

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Terrence Mahon To Coach B.A.A. High Performance Group

Sep. 30 Articles, Breaking News, Press Release no comments

New program will bring selected runners to Boston.

Press release from the BAA

BOSTON – Terrence Mahon has joined the Boston Athletic Association to lead and coach a high performance distance running initiative for the organization. The club will continue to be sponsored and supported by adidas, which has been the club’s sponsor since 1992. adidas has been the athletic footwear and apparel sponsor of the Boston Marathon, the B.A.A.’s premier event, since 1989.

Mahon is considered a top middle distance and distance running coach, and he is credited with having developed or coached eight Olympians since 2005.

He began his coaching career in 2003 with renowned endurance coach Joe Vigil serving as a mentor to Mahon. In 2003 and 2004, Mahon offered private coaching under his company Spiridon Running, LLC, prior to taking charge of Team Running USA, the elite group which would later become the Mammoth Track Club. Most recently, Mahon was employed by UK Athletics in England, where he served as Lead Endurance Coach.

At the B.A.A., Mahon will work with Michael Pieroni to create a high performance running program consisting of U.S. athletes. Mahon will recruit and coach the high performance athletes, and Pieroni will continue to be the director of the entire club. Mahon, along with the athletes who will comprise the high performance group, will be based in Boston. Club members will compete under the B.A.A. name and affiliation.

“The B.A.A. has a rich history of athletic excellence, both in terms of events and club membership, and I look forward to developing the next generation of top Americans who will compete wearing the Unicorn,” said Mahon. “The athletes who will run for the B.A.A. in this program will represent one of this country’s oldest and most prestigious running clubs, and our group will be the newest contributor to the already strong legacy of running in Boston.”

Mahon officially begins with the B.A.A. in October, and the program will launch shortly thereafter. It is anticipated that the first athletes will join the club by January 2014.

“The B.A.A. is committed to supporting running for both participation and performance, and we are pleased to introduce this program which will provide opportunities at the highest level of our sport,” said Tom Grilk, B.A.A. Executive Director. “Terrence, our new athletes and this program reaffirm our mission to promote the sport. This performance group will focus on elite competition; through the program, we will inspire up-and-coming runners both locally and nationally. We also hope that these athletes will serve to inspire an increased community focus on the benefits of fitness for everyone.”

Athletes who become part of the program will receive a range of benefits as the club seeks to develop Americans into top runners at several distances. Athletes will compete in track and field or in road races, and Mahon aspires to have club athletes compete in national championships, the U.S. Olympic Trials, the IAAF World Championships and the Olympic Games.

“Terrence comes to the B.A.A. with a proven record of having successfully developed and coached high performance athletes,” said Pieroni, who will work with Mahon to design and implement the B.A.A. program. “Our objective is to create a well-supported group of top performing athletes who will live, train and be coached towards the goal of representing the United States at international competitions.”

About the Boston Athletic Association

Established in 1887, the B.A.A. marked its 125th anniversary year in 2012 and is a non-profit organization with a mission of managing athletic events and programs for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle through sports, especially running. The B.A.A.’s Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon, and the organization manages other local events and supports comprehensive charity, youth, and year-round running programs. Since 1986, the principal sponsor of the Boston Marathon has been John Hancock Financial. The Boston Marathon is part of the World Marathon Majors along with the other major marathons in Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City. More than 50,000 individuals participate in B.A.A. events annually.

Coast to Coast Battle

Sep. 30 Articles, Racing no comments

You may have heard by now about a certain cross country race that took place in Franklin Park on Friday. The Boston College women’s cross country team hosted some of the top teams in the country with their Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown. You can get the full results to it here and if you want to see the rest of our coverage on it, including interviews with some of the top local runners (and a certain coach with local ties named Andy Powell), you can just click here.

If you want to see some great pics from the races, be sure to check out Scott Mason Photo. Credit for the feature image on the site today goes to Scott once again.

Wrapping up our coverage, we have our complete raw footage of the women’s race from various points out on the course:

And lastly we have the same from the men’s race:

Nahant 30k Recap & Raw Footage

Sep. 30 Articles, Racing no comments

The Nahant 30k is in the books and we have the race footage to prove it. It’s raw footage, but it gets the job done. We interviewed the winners yesterday and already posted that, but you can find said interviews with Dan Vassallo and Cheryl Cleary here.

For the men, Dan Vassallo led CMS to victory in the open division. Chris Magill and the BAA took the masters division, but Magill wasn’t the fastest masters runner on the day. That honor belonged to Jason Porter of…you guessed it…CMS. The Whirlaway seniors won their division by topping Greater Lowell by a 23 minute margin.

Over on the ladies’ side, Kasie Enman and the BAA topped the SISU squad in the open division while Whirlaway captured the masters and senior divisions. The top masters runner on the day was Christin Doneski, a member of that Whirlaway masters machine.

Sorry kids, no time to go into detail like who ran what time, but you can find the full results here. And while you’re looking for stuff on the race, be sure to check out Krissy Kozlosky’s pics from yesterday. The featured image attached to this post on our main page today is hers, and you’ll be able to see that and much more once you click that link.

As promised, here’s the raw footage from the race:

Vassallo & Cleary Help Burn Off The Fog In Nahant

Sep. 29 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

The 30k distance returned to the USATF-NE Grand Prix circuit with the Nahant 30k today. The course record holder coming in was Dan Vassallo of CMS who ran a 1:42:23 way back in 2011. The new course record is one Dan Vassallo, who just today ran a 1:40:39 and out-dueled Brandon Newbould to take the New England championship.

There’s also a new course record for the women. Cheryl Cleary took down the old mark set by Emily Kroshus (2:03:10 also in 2011). Cheryl ran a 2:01:04 and placed 58th overall. Cheryl showed a lot of emotion in the interview and it was obvious that she was truly overjoyed by her accomplishment.

It was fun to be a part of that raw, emotional experience and see someone truly enjoying something that they had worked so hard to achieve. People show it in different ways; Sean Duncan starts a dance party in a parking lot, Cheryl got a little choked up. Either way, it’s all good and shows just why we love Level Legion.

Triumphant Homecoming & An Inspirational Finish

Sep. 29 Articles, Interviews, Racing 1 comment

Andy Powell returned to Massachusetts with a few Ducks in tow for some cross country action. The former Oliver Ames standout and Stanford stud is now an associate head coach with the University of Oregon. Andy helped lead the Ducks to their first ever competition at Franklin Park in Boston, the Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown. The “O” men won their race handily. Oregon was paced by two true freshmen, overall placing six in the top nine (and their seventh runner was 18th). Cheserek and Leingang finished 1-2 (both running 24:11) and Ryan Pickering was just three seconds back of them in fourth place (24:14). Here’s a quick interview we did with Andy after he was all done coaching and spending time with kids from his old school:

During the women’s race, we were in position to see all the finishers. Amongst them was one woman who showed a tremendous amount of heart, guts, courage…whatever you want to call it, she gutted it out and found a way to make it across the line. It would’ve been easy to just accept the help and call it a day but she brushed off the help and crawled across the line. We give a tip of the cap to an effort like that.

Westphal Leads BC at the Battle

Sep. 28 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

Liv Westphal led the host Boston College women’s cross country team to a fourth place finish at the Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown. Liv, a junior, finished 3rd overall (running 17:00 for 5k) and was only 9 seconds back of the winner. The first two runners hailed from Providence College so it was a strong showing by the east coast women on the day. And although BC finished in 4th place as a team, their total time was equal to what 3rd place Cornell had accumulated, so it was close.

BC Invite: Gallagher

Sep. 27 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

The Boston College women’s cross country team hosted some of the top programs in the country today at Franklin Park in Boston, MA. Dubbed the Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown, there was quite a bit of buzz about it. Wesley Gallagher, a sophomore on the Northeastern squad, placed 11th overall and was the third east coaster. Wesley ran a 24:23 for the 8k cross country race and was just eleven seconds behind winner Edward Cheserek of Oregon.

CVS 5k: Spence Gracey

Sep. 27 Articles, Interviews, Racing 1 comment

We’ve been fortunate enough to publish some interviews and features on Neely Spence Gracey in the past, but had never actually met her face to face before. Since the CVS Downtown 5k is right in our neck of the woods we had an opportunity to finally get a proper interview and didn’t pass up the chance.

Neely placed 5th in the race, which doubled once again as the US 5k championships. Although she ran a little slower than last year, it is much earlier in the season for her and she is quite pleased with her progression. Here’s an interview we did with her that covers just about everything from this race to her future racing plans to…singing and dancing. We cover it all.

I know many of you are clamoring for the Tim Ritchie/Pat Fullerton interview. It’s coming. Soon. We saved the best for last.

Once again, feature image on main page is credited to Scott Mason Photo.

Chelanga 5th in Providence

Sep. 26 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

Sam Chelanga is back on the Level, this time for a strong showing in his first big test since coming back from his stress fracture. Sam ran a 13:59 to place fifth overall and seemed to be right in contention until about a half mile to go. It was at that point where one runner decided to make a crazy move and collided with a couple of others.

When Sam started to recount his story, he mentioned it was a guy that shot out to the front right away. I didn’t catch it at the time when he said ‘Ethiopian’, and my mind immediately went to Pat Fullerton. From my vantage point on the hill all I could see was the start and finish and the last I saw of the runners heading out was Pat out in front by a few strides. Total case of mistaken identity. Pat’s early lead was nothing compared to the lead the guy in question here had through the first half of the race.

To see more of the race, including the late race shenanigans, you can go here. At about the eleven minute mark (as noted in the LRC thread), you can see the ridiculous move #19 made.

That “move” did look pretty bad and it was interesting to here Sam’s take on it. At the time I hadn’t seen it so I didn’t realize it was that bad. There’s contact in track, sure, but something to that extent would probably get you DQ’d. It takes a special lack of judgement to barrel into people like that out on the roads. Between the early race lead and the late race contact, it makes you wonder just what that guy’s strategy was.

Feature photo on main page is courtesy of Scott Mason Photo.

Bumbalough Gets The W

Sep. 26 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

Courtesy of Scott Mason Photo.

After just so narrowly losing out to Ben True in the final steps of the race last year, Andrew Bumbalough broke through with a tremendous surge coming over the hill to take the 2013 US 5k Championship. Andrew learned from his mistakes in 2012 and knew exactly when to make that final move in the CVS Downtown 5k.

Here’s an interview with Andrew just after the awards ceremony. At the time, I was unaware of the contact late in the race and it didn’t come up in the interview. After seeing the footage, I wish I knew of it because that would’ve made for an interesting discussion.

To see the full race video, you can go here. At about the eleven minute mark (as noted in the LRC thread), you can see the ridiculous move #19 made.