Despite growing up and living just a few miles from an event that has become an annual tradition over the last five decades in her hometown, Cumberland native Abbie McNulty has never competed in the Arnold Mills Four-Mile Road Race prior to this year’s race.
“I don’t know,” said the former Bishop Feehan and Stanford standout. “I have no idea why I didn’t run this in high school. But better late than never, I guess.”
Better late for McNulty came on Friday morning where she made her initial visit to the 57th edition of the popular footrace a triumphant one. Competing among a record 878 finishers, the 29-year-old runner was never challenged for the individual women’s title, clocking a fast 21:58.3 (28th overall), nearly two minutes ahead of her closest rival.
Finishing behind the Feehan alum in second place was Katie Overstrum. The 27-year-old Connecticut native was timed in 23:55.7 (57th overall). Nora Blodgett, 25, of Boston, the 2022 winner, was third at 23:58.8.
Making the day extra special for McNulty on a perfect morning for racing, her fiancé and top U.S. marathoner Colin Bennie captured the men’s crown. The 30-year-old former Wachusett Regional and Syracuse star broke from a still tight pack of four to five runners with a mile and a half remaining and cruised to a record 18:47.3.
Three-time defending titlist Ben Drezek, the former Cumberland High and U/Mass Lowell star, was third at 18:53.0, a little more than two seconds behind runner-up Chris Collet of Providence (18:50.8). A total of four runners went under the one-year-old course record of 19:01.7 by Drezek with La Salle alum Joseph dos Reis also breaking 19 minutes with a fourth-place time of 18:59.2.
While the race’s distance was somewhat out of the wheelhouse of Bennie and McNulty, the two marathoners proved their “speed” is in check as they begin to amp up their training for some longer races this summer, and into the fall.
For the future husband and wife, Friday’s race was their first time racing since the Boston Marathon this past April, a race that McNulty was 31st among the elite women with a time of 2:34.51, and Bennie ran a crisp 2:11.46 to take 18th overall.
“(We’ve done) no races since. We’re just getting back into the thick of training,” McNulty said. “We took a nice long break through most of May and started ramping things up in June, and finally starting to click again. This is the beginning of a nice, long season.
“I wanted to use (today) as a hard effort, and felt pretty good,” she added. “I had some guys around me, which is nice and not something that I’m used to in a lot of female races. I just had a lot of fun and it went well.”
Unlike McNulty, Bennie had plenty of competition around him for most of the race. He nestled himself around third and fourth for more than half of the race. As he does often, Drezek did most of the early pace-setting.
“(He) took it out pretty honest. He took out a fast pace from the gun,” Bennie said. “It has been a while since I have done anything that was under five miles or 10K. It moved quick. As soon as you’re in a rhythm, it’s time to go. That’s sort of what I thought today was. I was able to settle in and let the other guys do a lot of the work. When it started to feel like I was sort of waking up, it was time to move.”
Bennie made his move not took long after making a left-hand turn onto Sun Valley Drive, about 2.5 miles into the race. He was able to maintain his advantage over his rivals as he made his way up the challenging incline out of the neighborhood for the final stretch of the race on Quaker Road and Nate Whipple Highway and onto the finish line near the North Cumberland Fire Station on Arnold Mills Road.
“I felt comfortable in it for a half mile and then found myself saying, ‘Maybe, I went too early.” That one hill, near the school, was no joke,” he said. “The last mile was a wake-up call. It was a little test to make sure the legs were still there.”
Ocean State Running will have more on Arnold Mills coming soon.
