Hello Grace Race friends. Here is the introduction for a video presentation that is in the works. Thanks to our friend Tim Mullane for his help in creating this from some footage we shot on our November 2010 trip! Stay tuned for the full version coming later in the spring. This is also available (along with other videos we’ve archived) on the VIDEOS tab you’ll find on “THE MISSION” page.

P.S. 7 months until the 8th Annual Grace Race. If you like to plan ahead, you can register today – online or by downloading, printing, and mailing in the application posted on the right sidebar. Thanks for your support …

Happy New Year Grace Race runners, walkers, and supporters! We have settled on Saturday October 1st as the date for the 8th Annual Grace Race. Please mark your calendars! We moved the race a week earlier than it was in the past two years, to get it off the Columbus Day weekend. This is a better date for people that travel for the holiday weekend and is also a less crowded weekend on the fall road racing calendar for eastern MA and southern NH.

Also: we hope to be posting video from Naivasha soon – please stay tuned!

Grace Race supporters, with your participation and the help of your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers we raised over $22K net (after expenses) in 2010. We are so grateful for your partnership with us. This money will go toward final work on Phase I (finishing the ceilings and floors of the dorms) and the first task on Phase 2 (building the classroom wings). We are in the process of planning the 8th Annual Grace Race – stay tuned. In the meantime, and on behalf of the Grace Race team, I want to wish you a joyful and restful holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy 2011! Please come back and visit our site in January, and thank you again for helping these kids in Kenya.

Construction on the girls’ and boys’ dormitories was nearing completion when we toured the buildings. The two dorms are identical buildings separated by the central courtyard, each built to house 50 kids and one dorm parent. The dorm parent has his/her own bedroom and living room area. Each dorm has bathrooms and shower facilities at the far end of the building. The windows for bedrooms on one side of the girls’ dorm offer a view of beautiful Lake Naivasha and 2776-meter high Mt. Longonot; the boys have a nice view of the garden and, beyond that, the mountains rising above the other side of the Great Rift Valley http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Great_Rift_Valley. Surely this will be a peaceful and inspiring place to live and learn.

The kids we met amidst our visits and travels in Naivasha and at the project site

have such great smiles. Here are a few more photos.

Greetings Grace Race friends. Four of us returned yesterday from a brief trip to Naivasha to see the progress on the orphanage and meet with our Kenyan friends there, including Bishop Kimemia shown in the team picture below. The dormitories are nearly complete. The boys dorm still needs a floor and both dorms need some finish work, but as you can see in the photographs below, the exterior work  is done. Very exciting! We decided to begin the school construction next as funds come in, rather than moving the orphans into the dorms in 2011. The benefit is that they’ll not need to be transported to schools in the town (a few km away), as the classrooms on site will be ready to use by the time they have moved to the orphanage. The classrooms wings will extend beyond the edge of the dorms, one wing on each side and roughly the same length again as the dorms, at completion. The other photos below shows some of the orphans with Bay State Marathon T-shirts that they were given, courtesy of the Greater Lowell Road Runners. Thank you very much

GLRR for your donation. Perhaps we have some future marathoners in this group!

We’ll post more photos, videos, and highlights from the trip – look for it in the coming days. Thanks for reading and for your support – the impact your donations are making is clearly visible.  – JohnF.

This year’s Grace Race was so much fun that I am already looking forward to next year!  We had two course records broken this year, a marquee runner, our first team competition, beautiful weather and great amenities.

We had a great visit with elite runner Nate Jenkins (2:14 marathoner).  He crushed the previous course record, all while nursing a bad hip.  He hung around talking with other runners and staff members and was just so accessible.  If you want weekly wisdom from a guy who competed in the 2008 Olympic Trials and even lead the NYC Marathon at one point a couple of years earlier, go to his training blog.

Caroline Bjune was the female winner.  She also set a new course record which was just set the previous year by her training partner, Kara Haas.  Both wonderful runners and graceful people, how great would it be if this friendly competition brewed to meeting at the Grace Race in 2011.  If that happens, my money is on…

Finally, and this can’t be understated, we had a successful team competition.  Several teams were represented.  Whirlaway won the men’s competition – Mark Hudson and Chris Spinney came in third and fourth overall.  Our very own Grace Race Team won the female competition.  There is a lot of hope for the future of the team competition because many local teams were represented  So, thank you to all of the teams that made the first annual team competition a big success:  Whirlaway, Greater Lowell Road Runners, Winner’s Circle, Gate City Striders, the BAA (hosts of the Boston Marathon), Trifury, RaceMenu, Cambridge Sports Union, Cambridge River Rats, and Adidas New England.

Well, it looks like we have a good foundation to build on the team competition as well as a solidified position as a great race that attracts elite runners.  All to say,  “thank you” to all who participated and volunteered to make it a great race day, to all of the teams present, and to Nate Jenkins and the others who put out tremendous efforts.  I am looking forward to next year – with good reason.

Hello Grace Race friends. The donations, corporate matching gifts, and pledge money is still coming in, but I wanted to share with you all that so far our net 2010 revenue – that is the money going directly to Kenya to building the orphanage and school – is over $17K. Way to go! Thank you all for pitching in and doing your part, and if you are collecting pledge money please remember that the deadline to return it is December 1st. Our team is preparing for a trip to Naivasha in late November. We’ll tell our Kenyan friends about the good things you all are doing and will return with photos and videos of the project to post here. Stay tuned! Speaking of photos …. check out the large collection of race photos at http://www.gracerace.org/the-race/photos. If you ran, walked, or volunteered, chances are good you’re in the gallery somewhere. Many thanks to our faithful race photographer Ben Rockney and our talented webmaster Alfonso.

Kwa heri ya kuonana – John F.

It was another fabulous Grace Race today! The weather was glorious, the best we’ve ever had for this event (the astute blog reader will note that I said the same thing last year, but it really was near perfect running conditions today aside from a stiff breeze).

It was also a day where we saw both men’s and women’s course records broken. Caroline Bjune of Andover broke the women’s record by 2 seconds, finishing in a time of 29:32 – nice job Caroline! We were honored to have Nate Jenkins in the field today. Nate shattered the record set by Casey Moulton last year, crossing the line in an amazing 24:49. We on the Grace Race team certainly didn’t expect a sub 25:00 on this course; way to go Nate!

Results and photos of our winners posted at: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/10/ma/Oct9_7thAnn_set1.shtml

In a couple weeks, we’ll have more photos posted on this web site so stay tuned please.

Thanks to Richie Blake from True Timing for doing a great job with the timing. Thanks to the many Chelmsford-area vendors who pitched in donations of cash, refreshments, and raffle prizes. Thanks Marx Running for helping promote the race. We’re grateful for the Chelmsford police for keeping the route safe during the race.

Asante sana, awesome crew of volunteers – registration, parking, bag check-in, child care, course monitors and water stops, finish line, refreshments, t-shirts, Grace Race Cafe, marketing/publicity, awards, etc. – we couldn’t hold this without you. With apologies to Jackson Browne … ”when it comes to serving here, you know you guys are the champs.”   

Finally we thank all of you runners and walkers for participating today. We hope you enjoyed it and welcome your feedback on how to grow the race and improve it. Can you help us become a race with a field of 400-500 in the next two years? Feel free to contact me with your suggestions (I’ve already received a couple via email). None of us on the Grace Race team are experts but we learn a bit each year about the do’s and dont’s of road races.

A small team of us will travel to Kenya in November to check out progress they have made on the orphanage and talk about next steps. We will be pleased to tell our friends in Naivasha about the good work you all have done by participating in and supporting the Grace Race. We’ll post a report on what we’ve seen and discussed when we return home.

Barikiwa sana (May God bless you).