Rich on Running: Byrne impresses in Brooksby Village Marathon

Lynn resident Rich Byrne not only tied for first place in the 10th annual Brooksby Village Marathon in the staff division on Monday, he did it barefoot.”I’m loving it,” Byrne, a Lynn resident who works at the Peabody retirement living community, said. “Here, I did a mile on the blacktop and sidewalk (the Brooksby Marathon is a 1-mile fundraiser). A year ago, I did a 3K in Melrose barefoot on blacktop.”The Brooksby Marathon course runs around the edges of the 90-acre facility on Route 114, “so people can run along the sidewalks, cross at crosswalks, that kind of thing,” Byrne said.The event benefits the Benevolent Care Fund at the facility, which helps residents continue to stay there if they encounter financial difficulties.”Brooksby Village’s promise is, once you move in, you never have to move out,” Byrne said.Byrne, who will turn 70 next month, is the pastoral ministry manager at Brooksby Village, overseeing the spiritual needs of the residents of Brooksby’s individual living facilities and nursing home – about 1850 people in total. He has a personal link to the facility: his father lived there for five years.In the staff division of the Marathon, Byrne and service manager Paul Weinberg tied for first with a time of 8:35. The staff division included categories for male and female runners; there was also a residents division (male and female) and a walker-wheelchair division.”There are people in their 80s who are quite mentally active,” Byrne said. “Physically, they do what they can do.”Byrne has run barefoot for about a year, with his interest sparked by a presentation from expert Michael Sandler at REI and from reading books on the subject, including author Chris McDougall’s “Born to Run.””A little bit is the way to start,” Byrne advised.He said that barefoot running has less of an impact on the knees and hips, with the shock falling instead on the metatarsal and Achilles’ tendon, lessening injuries.The TriROK Foundation will hold both a kids (ages 5-14) triathlon and a 5K road race at a “Families Get Fit” festival at Patton Park in Hamilton on July 16 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. The TriROK Foundation aims to teach youngsters fitness through swimming, biking and running. For more information, contact April at [email protected] or Ashley at [email protected] to all the students who participated in the Hershey Track and Field Games and the first annual Lynn Elementary School championships at Manning Field this past weekend. Well done!Good luck to the Lynn Classical girls track athletes who will compete in the nationals in North Carolina today: 4×100 relay members Saffie Bangura, Rebecca Potter, Tashanna Brown and Hulerie McGuffie. McGuffie will also run the 400.How about endurance runner Pat Farmer? The 49-year-old Australian is four months into a run from the North to South Poles, which would be the longest run ever tried, at over 13,000 miles. Farmer reached New York City on Tuesday on his journey south.Rich Tenorio writes a weekly column on running for The Item. Email him at [email protected].