May 18th, 2024

Below is the current race roster as of April 8th, 2024.  Several have yet to fully commit, a few are pending "I really hope so" as they nurse lingering injuries or other uncertainties.  We always see a drop of about 3-6 entrants a week before the race so we'll start with more than 20 entrants so that by the time we get to race day...we'll have the most allowed racers for the day of.  

I will determine start times as we get closer and more people finalize their plans.  One thing for the 2024 season will be everyone's start times separated by at least a few minutes of one another.  As the years have gone on we've bunched them up so people can run together.  It is my opinion that running with others slows you down and limits your full potential.  Given this entire event was devised around the concept of racing yourself so you can race others...pushing  yourself to your max can only happen when you are alone.  Run your own pace, not that of someone else and to start the race we'll separate everyone by their start times.  Even if by a few minutes, that separation creates the necessary tension to push yourself from being caught...and close enough to someone in front of you that you in fact will catch them.  

Anyone that cannot complete the race by 7pm should remove themselves from the entrants list.  If it takes you that long you didn't train hard enough or run fast enough.  We're not waiting around into the wee hours of the night for people that didn't push it.  Please pick another day for long slow run.  This is a race and it deserves a race effort.  (Exception here being those that blow up going too hard too early and death march it in instead of quitting.  I'll gladly wait all night to see people push through that and not quit.  

If you find yourself in sight of someone in this race and you don't try and beat each other on the final stretch into Fabbri, I'll share a few links to races you might be more interested in where they encourage holding hands at the finish line. This is not such a race.  The goal is to finish before the other people.  So if you are running several miles together for the company and you are coming down Gorham together...at some point one of  you is going to have to make a move and pull away.  If you come down the entire trail and hit the road and hang a left to Fabbri one of you should be pulling away from each other.

If you turn that final right turn and the last 150 ft to the finish line...and you are right next to someone else that is racing you...and neither one of you tries to beat the other one?  

I think you'll have missed the entire point of this entire day.  

 There is an intense beauty in finding the last remaining of adrenaline, the final sliver of energy and tapping deep into that reserve to push just a tiny bit harder than you ever thought you could.  Pushing when you know others are pushing just as hard, to find that final gear to pull away from someone else trying to do the exact same thing.  

Finding that gear when you thought the whole engine was broken.  That feeling of your body pulling you through and doing as YOU choose, not what it chooses, that is the entire purpose of this day.  Find that gear and use it.  

I guarantee nobody will be upset with you for beating them on the final stretch, but instead respect you and appreciate you for forcing them to find that same gear and provide that feeling of competitive fire when you felt miles ago that fire was out.  

Find the gear. Light the fire.  

Drop the hammer.  

That's ACI.  

May 18th, 2024.  Get ready.  

-Jeremy

1Darron Collins
2Maria Simpson
3Matt DeLaney
4Amber Hachey
5Brandon Chase
6Lori Alley
7Jarly Bobadilla
8Daniel Cortes
9Drew Wallace
10Jeremy Dougherty
11Jenn Britz
12Brian Head
13Jarly Bobadilla
14Tim Lock
15Abe Philbrook
16Tom Merrow
17Dylan Brann
18Tim McDonough
19Eric Mauricette
20David Loome
21Brad Eslin
22Chriss Davis
23Tara Allen
24Will Draxler
25Kat Snyder
26Peter Philbrook
27 Tom St. Germain (?) 
28 Bryan Gagner