Cool runners

Long-distance relay race in the Boston area was the fourth for a Notre Dame team of faculty and staff.

A team of runners from Notre Dame's faculty and staff put on some big miles this past weekend as they joined nearly 6,000 other runners in a relay race beginning in Hull, Mass., which is located southeast of Boston across Boston Harbor, and finishing in Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod.

According to team organizer, Brandon Jezdimir, who is the principal of Notre Dame's middle school, the race was nearly 200 miles in total and went through many historical areas in the Boston and Cape Cod areas. He said the Notre Dame team included Kathleen Offer, NDPMA's dean of admissions, Jim Sesi, NDPMA's webmaster; lower-school teacher Kim Kriesel; and middle-school teacher Ginny Pauwels along with Jezdimir and Mike Morrison, an NDP alum and former member of NDPMA's admissions department. 

"Running is a hobby of ours and we are always looking for an adventure and the Ragnar Races provide that excitement," Jezdimir said. "Our team was running day and night."

According to race organizers, the race, called the "Ragnar Relay Cape Cod," is a long-distance, overnight running relay that fields teams that left from Hull on Friday morning, May 11, and were expected to make it into Provincetown at various times on Saturday. 

For Sesi, it's the first time he's participated in such a race with the Notre Dame runners, who have run three previous long-distance relays: Holland to Traverse City, Mich. (2013); Madison, Wis., to Chicago (2015); and Cobourg, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, Ontario (2017).

Sesi said that each team had 12 runners (a number of non-Notre Damers fill out the team) and that each participant runs three legs.

"The distances we ran were different for each runner," Sesi said. "In my case, I was runner number four in our team and I ran four-, six- and eight-milers. We had about six to eight hours in between each run, I believe. I was really looking forward to it!"

Last weekend's relay race by the numbers:
 
• Teams had a maximum of 12 people 
• There were 500 teams running in this year’s Cape Cod edition, totaling about 6,000 runners
• The race is 192 miles long, seeing teams run from Hull to Provincetown
• Ragnar Cape Cod was started in 2009, and has sold out its last three years
• The average time to complete the course for team is 32 hours 

"The peaceful Cape Cod scenery lived up to its famous reputation on the Ragnar course," race organizers said. "Teams ran relay-style all day, all night and day again passing salt-weathered bridges, sand dunes, and pasty-white, picket-fenced houses from Hull to Provincetown. Along the way, they saw Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, old colonial homes and views of the rugged Northeast shoreline."

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Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org.

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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame's upper school enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.