Get with the video program. Yes, after all this time we have added sports video shorts to our website. You can view the latest videos at our friendly web location, http://runawaysclub.org/
Aerobics
Free running. Did you do your three miles today?
Reasons to run Boston!
Ironman Triathlon from the Inside Out by Mitch Thrower
Ozark Extreme Vainqueur at Raid The Rock 2006
Namaste Yoga
Name: Willow Run Rating: unrated Distance: 4.65 miles / 7.48 km Location: Start: Track - Mansfield, MA, US Attributes: loop, mostly flat, roads.
Click for a map: http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=73967
Let us know runawayclub@msn.com how you rate this route.
February 1-4, Dunleer Ireland
A trio of New England runners performed well at a pair of races in Ireland over the weekend. Based on their placing at the New England cross country championships in November, Mark Miller (BAA), Ian Marcus (Gr.Springfield Harriers), and Ben Schmeckpepper (BAA) earned a trip oversees to compete in the Armagh Road Race and the Ras na hEireann international cross country competition, and represented the region and the USA well with their efforts.
The international opportunity, created by race director Charlie Breagy has been going on for 10 years. Breagy, the affable Irishman who is the director of the CVS Downtown 5K in Providence which is the USA Championship for the distance, oversees the Ras na hEireann from this side of the Atlantic; the race is organized by his long-time competitive club, the Dunleer AC.
The competition week began at the 17th Armagh Road Race, the final event of two hours of competition on the Aragh City centre park mall. Miller led the closely bunched New Englanders in 14:35 for 13th over the multiple loop 5K, followed steps later by Marcus (14:37/15th) and Schmeckpepper (14:38/16th) in the 196 runner men’s race. The first two teamed with race winner American Christian Hesch (14:07) to score as the third international team.
Three days later, on February 4 at the Ras na hEireann international cross country festival in County Lough, the trio reversed their order exactly in the highly competitive field. Ben led the way in 7th (19:08, just 7 seconds out of fourth), followed by Ian (10th, 19:1 
and Mark (12th, 19:22). The combined placings scored a close third among the five international squads, earning a set of team medals. The invitational field 6K race, which dates back to 1970, was won by Irish champion and world competitor Seamus Power in 18:32.
Find more information about these events at the Ras na hEireann website.
Announcing …For beginners and independent joggers and runners.
Jim Whelan’s Home Town Team for fun and exercise runners. You can be among the first to signup for this new team. Your team t-shirt is included with your initial signup and you will be notified of team happenings by e-mail every week.
Joining a new group, making a new beginning is precarious. You want to be more healthy and fit, and each time you go out for a run you’ll encounter a new side of yourself — one that’ll become part of your daily life.
For more info and to signup, click http://runawaysclub.org/home_town.html
The software is an Internet-based solution for club and association management. They’re a little newer than some of the other options out there, so we benefit from newer technologies and a better understanding of how to leverage those technologies to create the most powerful and easiest solution for associations from 25 to 2500 members.
The program provides associations with an Internet platform to manage both front-office and back-office operations. It combines the association web site with the membership database, secure online member signup, renewals and expirations, credit-card processing, membership directory, discussion forums, event calendar and online registration, committees, documents, interests and other modules based on what clubs and associations do. The platform includes a full suite of administration tools to run the organization. There is no programming or HTML experience required; everything is controlled by menus and dialog boxes, and all changes are immediately live. They use state-of-the-art security, there’s no advertising and associations own their data at all times.
Some running club users include:
BY JAMES A. MEROLLA SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Sunday, January 28, 2007 10:31 PM EST
Jim Whelan, an ever-moving, ever-grateful Attleboro man, punctuates the end of each conversation or meeting with a very sincere “God bless you.”
That warm sentiment is even at the end of the voice mail message on his answering machine.
Whelan, 57, has a lot to be thankful for. A physical therapy assistant who works part time as a courier for Sturdy Memorial Hospital and who also cleans carpets and home
accessories part time, Whelan has a riches-to-rags-to-rats-to-runs life story that could be a book.
In fact, he’s writing one. If it wasn’t true, you’d never believe it.
Healthy for the past 19 years after too many hardships to name, Whelan started an annual March Run for Humanity 5K event in 1992 to benefit the homeless and hungry of Attleboro. On March 24, the race will mark its 15th running.
Whelan stills runs, but not from his demons. SUN CHRONICLE: Tell me your background, the good life, the secure life, when you were a kid.
JIM WHELAN: I come from a wealthy family. I’m a Milton native. My grandmother was a good friend of Howard Johnson (the hotelier) who lived in Milton. Huge money. My family members inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1940s.
I knew how to set a table for a five-course meal when I was 8 years old. It was an all doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs town. Nobody got in there if they had no money. Well, it’s still that way today.
SUN CHRONICLE: What was the seminal event that changed your life?
JIM WHELAN: Well, the first time, when I was 16, my brothers and sisters were put out in the street. There were 10 kids in the family. My parents separated. My father stayed in the house with my grandmother, and we ended up in the projects.
There was one bathroom for 11 people, and my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother. I had one more year at Milton High. That was traumatic, hanging out on the street corner in gangs, getting into fights, I gravitated toward the negative. I saw a lot of bad things and did even more.
I’m writing a book about my life. Stay tuned.
SUN CHRONICLE: You then had some serious health issues. Tell me about them.
JIM WHELAN: I contracted spinal meningitis at 21. They didn’t know anything about that then. They thought I had the flu. I was vomiting on the walls and my kid brother says, ‘Ma, Jimmy doesn’t look good at all.’ I went into a coma. I had the last rites said over me.
I saw those white lights just like they talk about. It was like going into a tunnel in the mind’s eye, with lights on the top, dark on the bottom, with figures of people moving in the dark.
SUN CHRONICLE: Obviously, it didn’t kill or cripple you, but there were more problems, right?
JIM WHELAN: Well, you can get many things. You can have amnesia. I had amnesia. I remembered some faces, and I’d say, ‘I know these people.’ I remembered my family. But others - I forgot so much. It came back to me (later), but I still suffer to this day.
At my worst moment, they picked me out of the gutter. In the dead of winter. They saved my life. The details will be in the book.
SUN CHRONICLE: How did you get your life back together? How long did it take?
JIM WHELAN: About 17 years. In those 17 years, I was homeless many times. Almost 20 years of homelessness and the streets and mayhem.
At 38, I sought help. I came up from that.
SUN CHRONICLE: Is that why you started this race? Because you had been there?
JIM WHELAN: To experience that homelessness and desperation and hopelessness in life, you have no idea how bad it is and how much is out there. I knew people who had jobs, then lost their jobs and were homeless. Boom! Gone. $50,000, $100,000 a year jobs.
So, I knew it was going to get worse. And those are only the people you here about. I used to work the soup kitchens at LaSalette. There were 100 families a week going through, and that’s going way back.
I started the race to make a difference, to make aware the growing needs and the problems. If everybody would do what I did in every town, in every state, we’d wipe out hunger.
SUN CHRONICLE: Can you believe it’s been 15 years since you started the race?
JIM WHELAN: I tell you, when it first started, (TV reporter) Glenn Laxton asked me, ‘Jimmy, what makes you think people will keep running in this race? People start these things all the time and they fall off.’
Well, it’s been in my heart for 15 years. That’s a long time. Here we all are. Still here.”
Anyone wishing to enter Jim Whelan’s 5K run/walk for Humanity on Saturday, March 24, may call 508-222-4538. Pre-registration is $18.
JAMES A. MEROLLA can be reached at 508-236-0431 or at jmerolla@thesunchronicle.com.
The Runawaysclub will be re-structuring its activities following a business meeting on March 24th. Runners and walkers of all levels, who are interested in re-establishing a small, amateur athletic community are welcome to join/comment the group. The club is a long standing member of the New England Association of USA Track and Field. The club promotes the Runaways Runaround 5 Miler, an August running/walking event in North Attleboro, MA
Welcome to runawaysclub blog! It’s the end of a long day of cooking runners soup, carrots and butternut squash. More news tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!
