The day after Thanksgiving, November 27, 2010, Tobin, Abram and I traveled to Long Island for a Footlockers Eastern Regional race. the race was held at Sunken Meadow State Park. Four other teammates and their families traveled as well for the race on Saturday. Footlockers hosts multiple races at this event. There are freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, elite and open races. Tobin and John ran in the elite race. The top 10 finishers qualify to race in Nationals two weeks later.
Here are the 5 Shrewsbury runners at Footlockers. It was a cold windy day. I believe it was 40 with a strong wind. It was cold!
Coach Smith had reserved two rooms at a hotel near the race. We were able to get one of the rooms. Unfortunately Coach Smith was unable to come and see his guys run. His daughter had a baby, their first grandchild a few days prior to the race.
Tobin traveled with Coach Murray, John's father and the indoor/outdoor long distance coach, to Long Island earlier in the day. Tobin and John wanted to run the course prior to race day. Abram and I left in the early afternoon to arriveat the hotel by 5 .
When we arrived at the hotel Tobin told us that he was having issues removing his spikes. He had decided to take out his cleats because of multiple terrain changes. Unfortunately for Tobin, he couldn't remove two spikes from each foot. Aside from the normal spike tool, we didn't have any other options. Abram asked for a maintenance worker to help us. He tried several wrenches and it came down to the Vice Grip that did the trick. Lesson learned: take out spikes at home and never leave home without your vice grip!
The Sunken Meadow State park on Long Island was beautiful. The park is at the end of the island. While the boys were warming up and before races began, Abram and I explored a bit. We traveled over this bridge from grass, trees and walkways to...
this amazing view! If you stood on the boardwalk there was no wind. In the park and on the sand the wind was gusting hard.
CJ and Dan ran in the sophomore race. CJ was in the leading pack the whole race. Dan has only run cross country for one season and is doing amazingly well.
CJ finished 4th in the race, receiving a medal.
Here is Dan's finish. He did very well too.
The elite race was next. Tobin and John were warmed up preparing mentally for the race. Mark Murray stood on the starting line holding them a spot for the race. There were 196 runners in the elite race. The organization calls this race The Marty Lewis race.
John is wearing his dad's Greater Boston race shirt. Mark was an Olympic finalist and raced in many NE races. John stayed in the front pack the whole race. 
It was harder to get good pictures of Tobin because of the dense pack of guys he was running with. 
The course was well done for spectators, although many argue that cross county is not a spectator sport. Tell that to the crowds of people who come to these races!
John was ahead of Tobin in the race.
John's finish was amazing. He was behind a group of 6 or more runners. He started to sprint towards the finish and was boxed out, ran outside the group and passed them all to finish fourth overall! This was John's finishing time. The top 15 finishers of this race all beat the winner's time from last years race! Each year the guys seem to get faster. It's amazing. 
Tobin gave it his all in this race.
Here is his finishing time. He finished 96th overall. He ran with kids from Penn, NJ, NY, MA, CT, RI and ME. 
Here is John standing at the podium after receiving his medal. He traveled to San Diego, CA on Dec 11, 2010 to run in Nationals.
Took this back picture of Abram, Tobin and Dan after the race. 
Mike ran in the junior race. 
Based on the winners time, Tobin speculates that he could have placed second in the juniors race. He doesn't regret running in the elite race. He ran against the best in the east and beat half of them!
Here are the guys again. Great job! All of them are running in winter track. They hope for another great season.
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