Sunday morning it was over to the small town of Hanson, Massachusetts for Damien’s Freaky 5K. This race is held at the local watering hole Damien’s Pub and featured runners of all speeds and qualifications and a nice crowd graced the streets of Hanson on what was an absolutely gorgeous fall morning.

Mrs. Running Griffin and I were both able to toe the starting line in between soccer practices and games thanks to a few family and friends providing rides to different locations. At the starting line it was good to bump into some friendly faces from the Thirsty Irish Runners and several runners had great costumes on to run the race in which added some good laughs.

I really enjoyed the course for Damien’s Freaky 5K. The course was a good out and back sort of course that took runners down a main road for the first stretch before looping through a residential neighborhood before making its way back onto the main road. There was a good amount of climbing throughout the course and the hills allowed for the legs to work a little harder along the way. Water stops were available along the course and heading back toward the finish line there was a nice crowd of supporters cheering you into the chute.

I finished the race with a time of 24:31, good for 7:54/miles. Some great running and quite happy with that pace! All in all, a great run!

Join me this weekend at Damien’s Freaky 5K!

This is a great race and it would be awesome to see some running friends there! Beer and burgers served post race!

Date: Sunday, October 30th
Time: 10AM
Location: Hanson, MA

Click here to register and look forward to seeing you at the starting line!

Today after my oldest daughter’s soccer game I ran the Move Over MSA Virtual 5K. This race is held live and in-person in Idaho in memory of Kurt Williams and the family has hosted a virtual 5K option for the past few years, as well. The race raises funds for The Multiple System Atrophy Coalition, a cause quite near and dear to my heart as my own dad continues to battle MSA like a champ!

I decided to run the Move Over MSA Virtual 5K in Raynham, Massachusetts on the familiar Monday Night Fun Run course the Colonial Road Runners host each Monday night during the summer. I altered it a bit starting and finishing at different spots but the loop of the course was the same. It was a perfect fall day for a run and conditions around 1PM were absolutely great. The course has a nice hill mixed in that I hit in the 2nd mile and felt good running throughout the run. I finished the Move Over MSA Virtual 5K with a time of 26:02, good for 8:23/miles.

Please be sure to follow Move Over MSA on Facebook to keep up to date with future events!

Registration is now open for the Move Over MSA Virtual Fun Run and I hope you will consider joining me in running this virtual race as we raise funds for the Multiple System Atrophy Coalition! The Move Over MSA Virtual Fun Run will take place on October 8th!

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a combination of symptoms that affect both the autonomic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that controls involuntary action such as blood pressure or digestion) and movement. The symptoms reflect the progressive loss of function and death of different types of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. MSA is a rare disease, affecting potentially 15,000 to 50,000 Americans, including men and women and all racial groups.

Move Over MSA was started by the family of Kurt Williams who bravely battled MSA. They created Move Over MSA to help raise funds toward finding a cure for MSA.

My own father has been battling Multiple System Atrophy so running this virtual run is very personal to me and my family and we’d be honored if you’d consider joining in on the fun. The beauty of the race, you can run/walk from wherever you call home and know that you are doing good in the world with each step hopefully getting us closer to finding a cure for Multiple System Atrophy.

To register for the Move Over MSA Virtual Fun Run, please click here.

Please be sure to “Like” Move Over MSA on Facebook, as well, by clicking here.

The Shawshank Redemption has always been one of my favorite films so when I came across the Shawshank Hustle a few years ago it was quickly added to my bucket list of races to run.

The Shawshank Hustle is held in Mansfield, Ohio and starts and runs from the prison and through the town where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed. Runners are split into two groups, guards and inmates, and the run is jam packed with some awesome Shawshank references.

The race starts bright and early at 8AM and upon parking in a field just across the street from the Ohio State Reformatory you then walk down a few steps and see the immense prison campus that the movie made famous. It’s majestic and creepy all at the same time and you can’t help but say out loud, “This is going to be pretty cool.”

Some runners take to full character dressing up as Andy, a guard or even the one runner who was dressed as the record player Andy used to pump opera music into the prison in the movie. Right before the race started, a police car with lights and sirens led the warden in on a motorcycle who then started the run and actually ran the entire course in a suit.

For a 4.6 mile course, the course was a nice and challenging route with some early morning heat mixed in and some decent hills throughout the run. Race organizers had plenty of water and volunteers out on the course and even a few musicians were out on the route adding to a really awesome atmosphere. As you came through downtown Mansfield, the impact of the movie being filmed there could still be seen as markers are in different spots around town where various scenes from the movie were filmed. For instance, a marker could be seen outside the old hotel Brooks moved into after being paroled (just the facade; his bedroom was actually filmed inside the old prison) and another marker was at the park bench Brooks sat on, as well.

After tackling the hilly course, it was then a quick downhill finish into the finish line back in front of the Ohio State Reformatory. I finished the Shawshank Hustle with a time of 40:32, good for 8:48/miles.

Post-run, runners were awarded perhaps one of the best race medals to ever exist. The medal seems to weigh about 4 pounds and is a complete replica of the safe that was in the warden’s office in the movie where Andy put the ledger each night only to replace the ledger the night of his escape with the hollowed out bible with a stone ax inside. The medal opens up, has a safe turn dial and is absolutely amazing!

Water, bananas, bars, ice cream sandwiches and freeze pops were available after the race and after a bit of a cool down we then used our race-provided tickets for a tour of the old Ohio State Reformatory. into a The prison has been turned into a museum with the front section completely overhauled into exhibits about not just the movie but also about the prison in general with sections about the electric chair, for example. As you make your way through the cleaned up, renovated section of the museum it is then into the actual section of cells, the infirmary and solitary confinement. This section was eerie to say the least, especially when in the infirmary it noted that paranormal activity has been witnessed there. That was enough to get us to giddy up and turn the other way.

After we were done our tour of the prison, it was then to downtown Mansfield to redeem the other free ticket for a ride on the refurbished carousel in the center of downtown. The girls took a ride on the carousel and the comfortable rocking chairs felt pretty good post-run as they took their ride. We found a great coffee shop with dynamite baked goods right next door to the carousel that hit the spot so we sat in the park for a bit and enjoyed the old-time feel of the downtown.

In addition to the race, we made a family getaway out of the trip and stayed in Columbus, about an hour away, and hit up a Columbus Clippers baseball game, the COSI museum (a science and innovation museum that was great!) visited a few different sections of the Columbus area and capped off our stay taking in a Columbus Crew soccer match. A great vacation!