Columbus Day Weekend

It looks like Columbus Day weekend will bring several more days of beautiful Autumn weather, with warm days, cool evenings, foliage so bright that it hurts your eyes, and not a rain cloud in sight.

While some will take the long weekend to rake leaves, visit colleges, or drive to Vermont, there are some big events on the running calendar. The biggest in this area is the New England Collegiate Championships at Franklin Park on Saturday. The meet brings together Div. I, II, and III schools from around the region, with several Newton North alumni scheduled to compete. These include Liz Gleason (Williams), Dave Polgar (BU), Anna Schindler (Wesleyan), Scott Cole (Wesleyan), Doug Brecher (Bates), and Jesse Chebot (Vermont). There are four races (Men and Women Varsity and JV), with the first getting underway at 12:00 noon.

[I lied: the Manhattan Invite is NEXT weekend, Oct 14. Sorry about that]

While there aren't any big races on the Mass. high school calendar, one of the biggest events in the country takes place at Van Cortland Park in NYC NEXT weekend. The Manhattan Invitational has dozens of races, with many of the top-ranked high school teams in the country. Bromfield HS (Harvard, MA) will be competing in the prestigious Eastern States championship race there, and will have their chance to show how they stack up against the best in the East. Other Mass. school participating include Xaverian, Brockton, and Brookline.

Monday is the Tufts Health Care 10K for women. This will be the 30th running of the internationally known race that features world-class runners and a field of over 6000 competitors. The race is at noon and starts and finishes at Boston Common. The best place to watch the race is from Memorial Drive in Cambridge, where you can see the runners three times before they head over the Harvard bridge towards the finish.

There are a number of smaller events on the calendar for this weekend, including the Wayland XC Challenge -- a youth 3K (14 and under) and open 5K XC race at Wayland HS on Sunday (that's where I'm planning to be!).