Pub Series Cops, Chaos, Copius Guinness on the Coast

It was all sunshine, gentle breeze, great food (fish tacos,
etc.!) and copious amounts of Guinness by the water at the post-race Marina
venue for Finish For A Guinness.

If not for a Keystone Cops act that took overwhelming men’s
favorite Shane Quinn and about 10 of the top guys off course after the mile,
the day would have been perfection.

Pub stalwart Mike
McGrane is getting hitched in two weeks and received an early wedding
present by staying the course and passing Pub stalwarts Macdara Nash and Kevin
Delaney to finish 3rd overall and as top Pubster in 17:50.

Looking at the overall results we figured the fairest way to
score for the top portion of the men’s standings was to discount all runners
not in the Series after McGrane in 3rd to Series Leader TJ Unger in 23rd (who looked to be the last of the lost tribe).

Usually, while runners not in the Series don’t score, they
do displace runners in the Series. So, by eliminating them, those runners that
went off course by up to two minutes, receive higher points than they
ordinarily would have (a small concession, but whaddya gonna do?).

In working this out, everything stayed pretty much status
quo, although some standings got tighter, ala overall where Series runnerup Patrick Bugbee of CSU (who had a very
good race) closed to within 2-points of Series leader Unger (metza-metza race).
The 3rd slot is also a 1-point scuffle between HFCers Lee Danforth and Andrew
Holmes.

The women’s race wasn’t affected (for Pubsters) for while
favorite Katie DiCamillo went off course, Series leader Kara Haas listened to the wise counsel of race veteran and former
Providence College ace Chris McDermott (2nd, top 40+ in 17:51) and placed first
in 18:28 over Rhode Island College 5000m xc school record holder Annmarie Gower
(18:50).

DiCamillo arrived 3rd in 19:10. The BAA’s Amanda Watters scooted in 4-seconds
later to maintain her solid runner-up slot while the fight for 3rd  is a dead draw at 215 points
between HFC’s Sarah Barrett and the
BAA’s Kristen Shaw.

There was one lead change that took place on the day‰ÛÓin the
men’s 70+ division‰ÛÓwhere 2014 70+ champ Rich
Paulson overtook Joe Noonan to
claim the top spot by 2-points heading into Paddy’s.