With the race being held in late July, the annual Blessing of the Fleet 10-mile road race often acts a a tempo run for most of our top high-school and collegiate runners.
For some, that’s exactly what Friday race turned out to be on hot but beautiful night for racing down in Narragansett. But for others, like former Bishop Hendricken star Jack McMahon, it was all in once the gun was fired.
McMahon captured his second straight title in convincing fashion at the 52nd annual event. The 23-year-old runner broke away from the field from the very beginning and was two-plus minutes ahead of his closest pursuer by the time he crossed the finish line, clocking a fast 49 minutes 43 seconds. UMass-Lowell teammates Will Benoit (second, 51:48) and Hunter Marion (third, 52:04) took the next two spots.
McMahon was 4:40 after the first, mostly-downhill, mile and was 9:20 at mile two. While he slowed to a pace of just over five minutes during a mile-long stretch on Route 108 midway into the race, the fifth-year grad student from Butler University was on cruise control en route to his sub 50-minute clocking.
“I wanted to run faster than last year because last year was pretty hot so I kind of sat in the pack for a while. I didn’t push the second half,” said McMahon, who was timed in 50:49 in 2023. “I wanted to push from the start and see if I could get close to the record. It got a little warm in the middle to get there.”
Finishing among the top 10 were North Smithfield alum and URI senior Nathan Masi (fifth, 52:51), La Salle alum and Wisconsin grad student Joseph dos Reis (sixth, 53:19), Hendricken alum and Merrimack senior Ryan Dyer (seventh, 53:35) and La Salle alum and Columbia junior Jack Casey (ninth, 53:41).
In the women’s race it turned into a runaway victory for individual honors, too.
Annabel Stafford, a 2023 Colorado State grad, was never seriously challenged on the scenic oceanside course, winning with a time of 59:03. She finished 35th overall among the nearly 4,000 finishers, Hanna O’Connor, a former Bay View Academy middle-distance specialist and current URI grad student, placed second (52nd overall) in 1:01.57. Connecticut’s Shelley Chordas was third (57th overall) at 1:04:09. The 50-year-old Chordas won her age division by nearly 13 minutes!
East Greenwich alum Emma MacDonald was fifth (62nd overall) in 1:02.53. Sofia Piccone, a fifth-year senior from URI, was eighth (100th overall) in 1:05.41. Cranston East alum Shayna Cousineau placed tenth (113th overall) with a time of 1:06.43.
Ocean State Running was able to catch up with a few familiar faces on the local running scene, including Casey. Hear what they had to say after Friday’s race in the video below.
