Nantucket Lifeguards take team Rock Run title in record time
BY JOSH GALVIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
"When there's no more sun, there's no more run," is the saying that some may have seen on posters over the past couple of weeks advertising Nantucket's 50 mile run around the island. Despite high clouds that dominated the sky for much of Saturday, 21 teams and 11 soloists gathered in the morning for 50 miles of sand and fun, with some sun, for the 18th annual Rock Run around Nantucket.

MICHAEL GALVIN/The Independent Rock Run Life Guard Team Ryan Voccola, Mike Torin, Paul Torin, Doug Armstrong and Chip Galusha.

With four of the team's five runners waiting at the finish line at the lifeguard stand at Jetties Beach, runner Chip Galusha, with no other runners in sight, jogged just at the shoreline through a queue of clapping supporters to seal the victory for the Nantucket Lifeguards.

For the second straight year the Nantucket Lifeguards took home the first place trophy with a cumulative time of 6:27, a new record that bests the standard set by the U. S. Marines by three minutes. The Lifeguard team has a storied tradition of performance excellence in The Rock Run but was dethroned by the Marine Corps three years ago. This year the five-man team consisting of Mike and Paul Torin, Ryan Voccola, Doug Armstrong and Galusha took another step towards rebuilding and maintaining that legacy of dominance.

Lifeguard

One staple of the team's success has been the training they must endure at the beginning of every summer to prepare them for work as lifeguards. "We run six to ten miles on the beach almost every day we work," said Galusha after the race. "The physical aspect takes care of itself with work but the race is very mentally draining. Each leg of the race has a different difficulty in terms of the consistency of the sand, slope of the beach, the wind direction - each is an important factor."

The race is broken up into five different checkpoints. All runners meet at the head of Coatue in the morning to run eastward for 12.5 miles towards Great Point Lighthouse in the "Wake up Call" starting leg. Runners then reach the first checkpoint and give way to a teammate or continue on the 12 mile leg known as No Man's Land that stretches from Great Point to 'Sconset public beach. The Tern is the third and shortest leg of the race, at 7 miles, but was regarded by some runners as this year's most difficult. It is followed by the Sunny Side that stretches from Surfside around Smith's Point to Madaket Harbor, where it gives way to the Home Stretch, the race's final leg. For this leg runners must go off the beach, running from Madaket Bridge until returning to the beach at Eel Point, before continuing on until the finish line at Jetties Beach.

Armstrong ran The Tern leg of the race for the Lifeguards and was one runner who appreciated the toughness of the leg. "Because of the winds on the island a lot of sand gets moved around between Tom Nevers and Nobadeer that keeps the beaches soft and sloped. It's tough to run on sloping, soft sand, it can really fatigue you quickly but it is a good challenge." Despite Armstrong's comments on the difficulty of his leg, his performance helped the Lifeguards gain massive amounts of ground on their competitors and all but iced the victory for the team.

Tom Holland took solo honors in a record time of 8 hours and 21 minutes.

Eight individuals started the run, and five finished, including Lauren Esposito, the lone female

entrant on the individual side. I Chip Galusha finishes strong. ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent