The 2012 The Cure is Coming will be held in Lexington Center on May 5th. The event will feature a 5K Road Race, a 4-mile awareness walk and wheelchair ride, a picnic lunch, music and family entertainment! The Cure is Coming is dedicated to raising ALS awareness and raising funds for ALS Therapy Development Institute, the largest non-profit biotech solely focused on finding an effective therapy for ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.

In 2011, the Cure is Coming 5k had more walkers and runners than ever before and raised over $60,000 for the ALS TDI. They hope to break records again in 2012 and I encourage you to run with The Running Griffin at this great event!

To register for either the walk or the 5k run, please click here.

This weekend I traveled back to the hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts where I took place in the annual Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. This race has grown to be the absolute best race in Western Massachusetts (and arguably the state/region) and close to 7,000 runners took place in yesterday’s event.

The Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race is a 10k that travels through the streets of Holyoke and hands down is one of the more challenging courses you will find. Runners start off in the downtown section of the old paper mill city and then head up-town running up some pretty substantial hills. At about the 4 mile mark the race begins a nice descent down Cherry Street and back toward downtown Holyoke.

The running conditions this year were absolutely beautiful as given the timing of the race you could be dealing with snow, sleet and cold temperatures. However, this year there was mild temperatures, some pretty nice cloud cover and the sun broke out just about as the race was ending. Absolutely ideal running conditions!

Thanks to all the fans who lined the course this year and cheered runners on! At some points along the course the crowds were 3-4 rows deep and the last .2 stretch of the run toward the finish was more crowded than I have ever seen it before.

This year, local runner Zach Hine won the race which is the first time a local runner has run in 20 years. Typically the Kenyan contingency takes home the prize, but Hine, who was just part of the US Olympic trials, ran a stellar race to win the prize!

I finished the race with a time of 50:40 good for 8:06/miles. What I was most pleased with is that I shaved just under 2 minutes off my time from last year!

Boston Marathon numbers have been announced and my official race number is 22630! One month until the marathon!

Registration is now open for the 29th Annual POW-MIA 5 Mile Race which is held in South Boston and runs along the scenic waterfront of Southie. This 5 miler is sanctioned by the USATF and has a great post-race celebration that will prove to be a good time. All of the proceeds from this race go to the POW-MIA Awareness Committee of Massachusetts which we can all agree is an extremely worthy cause!

This year’s POW-MIA 5 Mile Race will take place on June 24th at 10AM.

For more information on this race, please visit the race website by clicking here.

We left Bridgewater and it was clear and sunny and made our trip down to Plymouth. One would have thought we traveled hours away given the vast difference in weather. When we made it to Plymouth, snow was falling fast, the roads were covered and slick and cars were spun out across Route 3. We safely made it to downtown Plymouth and made our way to the starting line for the Pace to Pint 5k.

The race started off on Water Street right near the historic Mayflower and Plymouth Rock and ran across Plymouth harbor for a pretty good stretch. The wind was whipping pretty good and the chill coming off the water was definitely something to contend with. The course was very well staffed with volunteers at each turn and the course was a pretty flat course with a little hill coming off of a bike rail trail heading back up to Main Street.

The race finished off right back in front of the water and water, bananas and Hint water was provided. Each runner also received a coozie and one free Harpoon beer ticket good at a variety of restaurants and bars abutting the course. We opted to go to T-Bones Roadhouse BBQ for our free Harpoon IPA which hit the spot post race!

Had a really good race especially with the cold, windy and slushy conditions. Finished the Pace to Pint 5k with a time of 23:29 good for 7:32/miles.