LYNN — It was 53 years ago that Joe Abelon got the idea of starting a summer running program at Lynn Woods.
“Back then,” said Bill Mullen, who acts as race director today, “we may have had 12-24 people running.”
Now, Mullen has a database of more than 4,000 names, and he says that doesn’t even represent everyone who has put on a pair of sneakers and ran through the woods on Wednesday nights.
This year’s races started the last week of May and will run through the last week of September. And if there’s anything that impresses Mullen about the races these days, it’s the diversity among the runners.
“When we started, everybody was a guy,” he said. “Now, you have men, women, children … that’s what really impresses me.
“I’m struck by the number of Lynn kids who have never done this before,” he said. “Especially kids from Lynn Tech. There are a lot of new people coming along and enjoying the woods.”
Mullen commends the coaches at schools such as Lynn Tech “who encourage their kids to do the training over the summer to get ready for cross country.”
Another encouraging sign for Mullen is that the numbers are up after a couple of lean years due to COVID.
“We were down, probably about 30 percent, the last couple of years,” he said. “Now, we’re back up, which is good.”
Naturally, if you’re going to take on the project of running summer races, it would help to have some connection with the sport. Abelon and Mullen qualify on all counts. Abelon is a runner, and was a longtime high school track coach. After starting the races back in the 1970, Abelon ceded the day-to-day organizing of them to Mullen so he could concentrate on coaching.
Mullen began running in 1967 because he was always fascinated by the Boston Marathon. Once he got into it, he ended up running the Boston race “eight or nine times,” while running a total of 23 marathons overall. He continued running until last year, when a medical condition put an end to his career.
“Let’s just say I was advised not to continue to do it,” he said.
A typical Wednesday will start around 2 p.m. with the lining of the course, which is on the Lynnfield Street end of the woods. Though the races for children are the same every week, there are about four or five different courses for adults, and they alternate week-to-week.
“We usually get there about 5, and we’re done by 8 or so,” Mullen said.
But that doesn’t mean he’s any less enthused about coordinating the races.
“We get a lot of people who come up to us and thank us,” Mullen said. “I always tell them we wouldn’t do this if we didn’t like it.”
“It’s worth the effort,” Mullen said. ‘”At this point, we’ve been looking to get more people into volunteering. In the past two years, we’ve had more and more people help. That has been encouraging.”
