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Downtown Temple,NH

Saturday, November 29, 2008

2009 New Hampshire Grand Prix Series

Ok, here are the NHGP races for 2009. The series is supposed to be a friendly competition between NH running clubs but historically only a few clubs actively participate (Gate City Striders, Greater Derry Track Club and Granite State Racing Team). I think the other clubs are:
- Rochester Runners Club
- New Hampshire Athletic Alliance
- White Mountain Milers
- Monadnock Regional Milers
- Coastal Athletic Alliance

Personally I've only run 3 of the 7 races: Great Bay, Foothealth and Moose on the Loose and only enjoyed 2 of these. So who exactly picks these races anyways? 5/7 races have basically less than 100 finishers. Why not pick races most of us are already going to? I'm not sure I understand the logic of the selection process. Oh well.

My prediction for 2009: Greater Derry Track Club (GDTC) will win the series.

Great Bay Half Marathon- Sunday April 5th, Newmarket
  • 1,114 finishers in 2008
  • Yankee Timing
Foothealth 5K - Saturday May 2nd, Derry
  • 70 finishers in 2008
  • New England Timing
Smuttynose 5K- Sunday June 7th, Newmarket
  • 641 finishers in 2008
  • Yankee Timing
St Anne's 5M - Saturday July 25th, Hampstead
  • 104 finishers in 2008
  • Granite State Race Services
Moose on the Loose 10M - Sunday August 23rd, Nashua
  • 93 finishers in 2008
  • Yankee Timing
Alliance Against Cancer 5k - Saturday September 12th, Manchester
  • 103 finishers in 2008
  • Granite State Race Services
Fall Foliage 5M - Saturday October 10th, Warner
  • 79 finishers in 2008
  • Granite State Race Services

On a side note:
While checking the above races for 2009 websites, I saw a blurb on the Great Bay website about a new timing chip for 2009 called the Chronotrack D-Tag. It's a disposable timing chip that still attaches to your shoe but doesn't have to be returned and is lighter. My initial thought is although it's neat, I think it really benefits the race director and not the runner. The tag is part of the Bib so they don't have to worry about matching bibs with timing chips and they don't have to worry about runners forgetting to return them. The runner still has to attach it to their shoe and I doubt most of us would notice the the weight savings of the paper chip vs those weighty ChampionChips. They also claim the new chip is easier to attach to your shoe as well. I've watched the video, I personally think lacing my shoelace through the ChampionChip is easier. From a runners point of view the perfect solution would keep the chip fully incorporated in the Bib and not have to tie anything to my shoe. Now that would be sweet.

Below is a link to a PDF showing how the new chip is used. I also attached a video showing essentially the same thing.

Chronotrack D-Tag instructions


4 comments:

Jim Hansen said...

Steve,
I used that chip at Falnouth this summer. Everyone had the hardest time figuring out how to use it. The video helps!
Jim

DoubleJ said...

Awesome...I wish a lot of these didn't conflict with other races I wanted to run already....I had been periodically checking in to see what these races would be and when...too many races, too little weekends :(

One side note...I know the nhrunning.com has the Moose 10M listed as Sat. 25th of Aug, but the 25th is actually a Tuesday...so they may mean its 22nd... not sure...

Two of these races step directly on the USATF-NE GP series and a few are same weekends as Seacoast Series races so that may affect turnout for sure...

Smutty is same day as Rhody 5k (USATF).
Alliance is same day as Ollie (USATF) and Newmarket (SCRS).
St. Annes is the day before York 5k (SCRS.
Fall Foliage is the day before Great Island 5k (SCRS)

You typically don't see a lot of these teams going to USATF-NE GP races except for Gate City who sometimes throws their racing team in the mix... but the Seacoast series is becoming very popular with a lot of these clubs for sure... I guess it's a good problem to have... too many races to pick from on a given weekend as opposed to not enough or none...

Looks like a great spread of races for sure though...

I feel a blog entry for myself coming on here :)....

Jedi Dadi said...

Good catch on the Moose date. Both the GCS website and NHrunning sites had the wrong date listed. The correct date is 8/23 (Sunday).

I know the NHGP series at least looks at the NEGP schedule (although there's still some conflict). I don't know if they took the Seacoast series into account though. They should. It has become VERY popular.

Anonymous said...

I used the disposable chip for the first time at Philly. It is easy enough to put on, but I was worried that if I didn't have it exactly as illustrated in the instructions, it may not work. Or that it might chafe and break the circuit. I doubt it's that sensitive to either the orientation when it's attached or to wear, but you don't need anything else to worry about before or during a marathon.

The real advantage for the runner is in longer races, since you don't have to stop, struggle, and stiffen up while removing a chip (or having it removed).