Frodo, The Running Heisman, The Precious…wait, can we use two Lord of the Rings references? Sure, why not. The award bears a striking resemblance to some type of hobbit or elf-like creature, with a pillar of fire running from the base to the knee serving as the support to hold the runner up in mid-stride. I remember when I first laid eyes on it at my Acushnet debut and thought ‘that’s something’. I was a deep thinker back then. A few years later, my name was called and when I walked back to my teammates, trophy in hand, Scott Anderson said not-so-softly ‘leave it in the latrine’. That was awesome because a.) it was unexpected, b.) the Scottish accent made it that much better and c.) who says ‘latrine’ anymore? Come to find out that’s what he says about all race awards.
Alas, I would be baggin’ no additional Frodo this year, as Jason Eddy was the one who was adding to his collection. In a race that featured five past champions, Jay was the champion of the champions and earned his third Acushnet win. Eddy covered the 4.1 mile course in 21:27, which is only about five seconds off of his PR. That PR was from a decade ago now, back before he took a break to get his CPA license and start a family. Coming so close to it now is a good sign that is he well on his way back to being in the top form he was in the early post-collegiate days.
Of the race, Jay said ”I was happy considering the humidity and the weather, I was really happy with the race today overall.” If you read between the lines there you can clearly see that he was happy with his race. As he should be too. The air was disappointingly hot and thick, just a terrible surprise after a relatively mild August. It didn’t stop him from going out hard. Eddy ran a 4:52 for the first mile and opened up a good lead. Knowing he wanted to push the second half of the race, the second mile was a little slower (5:16) before ramping things back up with a 5:02 third mile. Feeling no pressure from behind, he cruised it in over the last mile without going to the well.
Also fighting through the unpleasant mugginess was Joe Navas and Steve Dowsett, both of the winning Whirlaway team. Joe is another former champion here. With only two titles to his name now he’ll need to pick up a win next year to keep up with Eddy. Dowsett once again fell victim to the curse of Navas’ back side. Joe’s derrier is a lot like Medusa’s head. One glance upon it in a race and your legs turn to stone. Or at least you just won’t be able to beat him. Steve found himself looking at Joe’s posterior about a mile into the race and that was it. Good night. Two years in a row.
For the women, it was all about redemption. Anne Preisig, running for Team Redemption, finally got the win that eluded her last year. Anne finished 12th overall and ran a 26:10 in securing the victory. Anne was a scant five seconds ahead of runner up Patricia Carreiro. Although Anne never turned to look back, she could constantly feel the pressure from somewhere behind her and as a result had to keep a pedal to the metal.
Below is our interview with the winners and some race highlights. Jay shows off his new hardware, while Navas and Dowsett try to steer clear of the parasitic wasps that seemed to be drawn to the interview area. It was quite exciting.
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