![\"Melrose](\"http:\/\/www.melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Melrose-Running-Club-at-Bill-Rodgers-Jingle-Bell-5K-2018-300x225.jpg\")
We had 26 runners at the Bill Rodgers Jingle Bell Classic<\/strong>. The weather was pretty good, except for a little hail! After the race most of us gathered at The Burren for a few beverages. Many of us saw Bill Rodgers and some took a few snaps.<\/p>\nI saw him as I was heading out. He was sitting right next to the front door with a table full of people hanging on his every word. He kind of looks like an elf!<\/p>\n
Thuy Dang<\/strong> and Mary O’Connell<\/strong> ran their twelfth race of the series and clinched the jacket! I know that they both made personal sacrifices to run these twelve races and they should be proud of their accomplishment.<\/p>\n Stephanie Lawson<\/strong> ran her 11th race and is our second place winner.\u00a0 All three of our winners ran The Howling Wolf Half also. So no one took the easy way out.<\/p>\n I came in third and Diarmuid Cahill came in fourth. Everyone else ran four or fewer races.<\/p>\n Don Keren and I came up with the idea of a club racing series during a Tuesday night club run. I was excited about all of the great races I kept finding and said that it would be great if we could get more people to go to these races. I really wanted to encourage our new members to run races. Don said, why don’t you organize a series like other clubs do.<\/p>\n This was in early December which gave me a few weeks to come up with a schedule and a January race.<\/p>\n In 2017 The Series had 86 runners and a total of 178 race finishers. In 2018 we had about the same number of participants but had 188 race finishers.<\/p>\n We are hoping that even more of you will lace up and join us in 2019.<\/p>\n Nick Lamberti included a link to a Racing Series survey in one of his email blasts. We had about 25 people respond and I’ll be using this input as I develop the 2019 schedule.<\/p>\n The survey said people were looking for\u00a0 more multi-distance races and 10Ks in particular. As I set up the 2019 schedule I’ll be looking for multi-distance events but will not be adding a marathon.<\/p>\n The first race for 2019 will be The Great Stew Chase<\/strong> again. This is a great club event and I would love for all of you to come out and run this race.<\/p>\n I have added the registration link on the MRC web site. Registration is $28 all-in. Not bad.<\/p>\n Please be sure to register under The Melrose Running Club.<\/p>\n You can run either race and enjoy an awesome party with a band, hot food and cold beer. The MIT\/Kendall T stop is just down the street, so no one has to drive.<\/p>\n In March we will head over to Medford for The Running of The Leprechauns 5K<\/strong>. Many MRC runners participate in this race every year. The registration link is live, but I have not set up a team yet.<\/p>\n A lot of races have either not confirmed their date yet or registration has not opened. I will post more details on the 2019 schedule in January.<\/p>\n Run well my Friends!<\/p>\n Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our second Annual MRC Racing Series has concluded. We had 26 runners at the Bill Rodgers Jingle Bell Classic. The weather was pretty good, except for a little hail! After the race most of us gathered at The Burren for a few beverages. Many of us saw Bill Rodgers and some took a few snaps. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-club-races"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Increasing Participation<\/h2>\n
![\"Great](\"http:\/\/www.melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Great-Stew-Chase-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
I picked the Great Stew Chase<\/strong> since it was later in January and we had a huge turn out. I’m not sure if the club participated in past years but we certainly made an impression in 2017!<\/p>\nLooking to 2019<\/h2>\n
![\"Super](\"http:\/\/www.melroserunningclub.com\/RacingSeries\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/super-sunday-logo-transparent-150x150.png\"){kind=logo}
Our February race is The Super Sunday 5 Miler and 5K<\/strong> in Kendall Square. Judy Dolan has created a team for us, so please be sure to register under the club name.<\/p>\n