Week ending 01-25-09

Picture from the past. Me and Gary Wallace in the early going of the East End Club five mile circa 1985.

Wow, this was a tough week. I got knocked on my @$$ by the flu and ended up with my first day off in 89 days. This is the first time I've missed a run for reasons other than injury in at least 5 years. I ended up with 0, 4, 5, 4, 9, 11, 11 for a total of 44 miles. That was my lowest week in the last 3 months. Ended the week with another snowshoe double, taking third on Saturday over 3.3 miles in Readsboro VT then finishing up the week with a third place at the 4 mile Curly's snowshoe race in Pittsfield MA. That gives me 7 races so far this year....two seconds, two thirds, a fourth, and two fifths. Still haven't got an elusive win, but at the current rate I'll get nearly 100 races this year!

Another weekend another double

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a while as I’ve enjoyed racing Curly’s record run before. It is probably the series race that is best suited for me (tough climb, run-able downhill). I won the race last year and although I wasn’t as fit as last year I hoped it would be one of my better performances.

Things quickly changed as I woke up sick on Monday morning. I’ve run through illness and injury before, but there was no doubt on Monday that I would not run. I slept from 10 AM until the next morning. Then I ended up staying out of work on Wednesday as I still was dizzy nauseous and just plain sick. So Monday was my first day off in 89 days and then I was only able to muster 4 miles each of the next three days. On Friday I started to feel slightly better, probably because I was able to eat again on Thursday night after not eating for over three days. I figured there are only so many opportunities to race on snowshoes in any given year and I didn’t want to miss any. My goal became to just get through the weekend and not get myself sicker.

On Saturday morning I headed out for the nearly 3 hour drive to Readsboro. I hit a couple of snow squalls in Greenfield and then some rough road as I drove through Heath (MA). I came out in Vermont and wouldn’t you know it, right in front of me on route 100 was Ed Alibozek and the gang from CT. I followed them the last 15 miles into Readsboro.

After checking in at the Readsboro inn (nice to have indoor facilities) I headed out for a warm-up. There really weren’t any side roads so I just ran out & back on route 100. This also gave me a chance to check out how far it was from the Inn to the start (about ½ mile). I felt okay warming up and thought that there was a chance this could be my day to pick up an elusive win. You never know, especially with first time races. I think it was right about that time that I saw Justin Fyffe and he mentioned that he brought Greg Hammet along. Oh well!

About 70 of us gathered at the Catamount ski trail and we found that Bob Dion was not kidding when he described it as single track. The trail was very narrow and it was broken out one person wide. That would make for an interesting start. It would also make for an interesting return as a good portion of the race would be out & back on the rail trail.

Conditions were decent, 20’s and sunny, when we took off in a desperate sprint for position and snow flying everywhere. Justin and Greg went right to the front and Ken Clark was in third with me right behind. I figured Ken would be the guy I’d be aiming to beat. After the race he noted that he “hated going out fast” as it took him out of his normal rhythm. I felt the same way, it was nearly an all-out sprint for the first 400m. At that point we had to jump a stream and there were two trails. I went left, Ken went right, and I apologized as I bumped my way in front of him. After that I tried to push really hard and get some distance on Ken. I could see Greg and Justin each taking a turn at the lead. Justin said he took the lead because he was sick of Greg kicking so much snow on him (or maybe it was the other way around?). Anyway, they seemed to be having a good battle up front. Meanwhile I tried to get into a “coast” mode. I couldn’t hear Ken behind me and I had images of me gapping him by a lot. I checked my watch as we passed the point we’d be coming back on and saw 11:34. Three minutes later I was exiting the rail trail and in the woods. This gave me the chance to check out where Ken was. Boy was I surprised, he was right on me, maybe only 10 seconds back. Ugh!

I started pushing harder, thinking “I’ll push to the rail trail then see where he is”. I was back on the rail trail at 18:06. Ken was still right on me and I was struggling. I thought “I’ll run 5 minutes hard then see where he is”. A long difficult 5 minutes later I snuck a peek and he was still right there. Ugh! I thought “Five minutes to go, don’t give it to him after you worked for 23 minutes”. I ended up pushing right up to the finish instead of maybe saving something for the next day and was very pleased to get third. Justin took his second win in as many races running 27:30 with Greg 23 seconds behind him. I came across in 29:18 with ken 14 seconds behind me and Paul Bazanchuk taking the 50+ age group and fifth overall a minute later.

After a warm-down it was back to the Inn for some soup and hot cocoa and a ton of awards. All category winners got a cool authentic rail spike and a pick of anything on the prize table. I got a huge box of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Justin took a Dion winter hat and seemed quite happy sipping away at a local brew with Greg, and it wasn’t even NOON. J

I headed off to Pittsfield for the afternoon. I had hoped to do some climbs or town runs or something, but being sick had really taken the wind out of my sails. Instead I just got something to eat and was in bed by 5 PM.

After a good night sleep I headed over to the state forest for Curly’s record run. The temperature was five-below zero as I drove through town. It did warm up to zero at race time and actually didn’t seem too bad in the sun. I had no illusions of a win on day two. My goal was to finish and I figured I’d aim to run with either Ken Clark or Abby Woods. I still wasn’t sure how much the flu had taken out of me and I had felt pretty beat doing a flat 3.3 mile the previous day.

I did 3 miles of easy running on the road and that did nothing to improve my predicted place. I felt pretty much dead on my feet. I decided to stick with my normal race warm-up (3 miles on road then a mile in snowshoes on the course) but I’d skip the usual strides. I figured I only had so much gas left in the tank and I didn’t want to use it doing sprints before the race. I saw Ben Nephew and Matt Cartier and Tim Mahoney who I guessed would be the top dogs, although rumor had it that there might be a bunch of William’s college kids showing up (they didn’t). I also bumped into Tim Van Orden (TiVO) who had also been sick all week and not run a step since the Greylock race the previous Sunday. Right before the start TiVO got a bunch of us to help someone who got there car stuck in a snow bank and were blocking the road. Nothing like ten 125 pound runners trying to move a car in snow!

After some instructions and one question (“How did Curly get the name Curly” – “He had lots of hair”) we were off. The snow was solidly packed which would make for fast going. Ben went right to the front with Matt, Tim, and TiVO tucked right behind. I was off the back in the first 100m and had gapped 5th place by an equal amount. So much for running with Ken or Abby as I was in the lonely gap between groups. I started to feel a lot better as the climb progressed and I felt like the lead four were coming back to me. About ½ way up the hill TiVO started walking and soon after I was around him. I noticed that Ben was walking which isn’t unusual for him on steep climbs, but he seemed to be walking early and often (in my opinion). I was steadily closing the gap and thinking “Ben must be running a tactical race, biding his time”. Tim yielded the trail at about ¾ of the way up and I went into the powder to get around Ben soon after. I was feeling GREAT, but working very hard. I could see that we were almost to the top and I got it into my head that I wanted to be King of the Mountain, so with 50m to go I went around Matt and hit the summit in a little over 17 minutes leading the pack.

As expected, not even 50m later Matt blew by me and Ben went around as well. Soon they were flying out of sight. Tim was right behind me keeping me honest on the drop. I hit the bottom 4 minutes later thinking “17 minutes up and we lose it all in 4 minutes”. No time to relax as Tim was right on my tail. I like the last mile or so of twisting trail where you can get a look behind without really looking. I kept looking and checking my watch every couple of minutes. Finally I hit the half-mile to go where I had warmed up to (great way to check out the finish to the course so there are no surprises) and made one final push for the line.

I was surprised that Ben had not passed Matt on the Shadow Trail as I think of Ben as one of the best descent runners in New England. Matt ran strong on the down and Ben didn’t take him until a little more than ½ mile to go. Ben got his first win of the year and his 5th all-time WMAC win. Matt rolled in 10 seconds later and I took third 49 seconds later. Tim kept it close finishing 12 seconds behind me. TiVO had a battle with Paul Bazanchuk, taking him by 8 seconds at the finish. Paul had a heck of a weekend, taking the 50+ in two consecutive days and finishing 5th and 6th respectively. There were a bunch of age records set on the fast snow and Abby took 8th overall breaking her course record by more than 30 seconds.

Twenty-two runners doubled up this weekend, racing 3.3 miles in tough snow at Readsboro, VT and then taking on the fast snow but tough climb of the 4 mile course in Pittsfield, MA. Eleven of them also did the double on the previous weekend (bolded)!

Ed Alibozek
Ed Alibozek Jr
Paul Bazanchuk
Laura Clark
Ken Clark
Denise Dion
Dave Dunham
Martin Glendon
Bill Glendon
Paul Hartwig
Jamie Howard
Sibyl Jackson
Chris Johnson
Konrad Karolczuk
Walter Kolodzinski
Jay Koloodzinski
Mike Lahey
Jody Lahey
Bob Massaro
London Niles
Laurel Shortell
Erik Wight

With the second double-race weekend wrapped-up a total of 6 races have been held in five weekends. There have been 342 unique finishers in the six races (199 men and 143 women). The average age of the runners is 42.4 with the youngest being 8 and the oldest 79. 246 runners have done one race, 42 have done two races, 18 have done three, 18 have also done four, 11 have done five, and seven have done all six races.

There have been 101 races since Bob Dion won the first WMAC snowshoe at the South Pond shuffle back in Feb. of 2002.
Here are the All-time WMAC finish leaders
Rank Name
1 Konrad Karolczuk 89
2t Laurel Shortell 86
2t Richard Busa 86
4 Bob Dion 85
5 Laura Clark 78
6 Edward Alibozek 76
6 Ed Alibozek Jr 75
8 Ken Clark 66
9 Bob Massaro 65
10 Dave Dunham 55
11 Denise Dion 52
12 Peter Lipka 48
13t Walter Kolodzinski 47
13t Paul Hartwig 47
15 Jay Kolodzinski 46
16t Mike Lahey 45
16t Martin Glendon 45
16t Bill Morse 45
19t Lawrence Dragon 44
19t David Boles 44
19t Jim Carlson 44

All-time WMAC point leaders
Rank Name
1 Bob Dion 6980.23
2 Ken Clark 5927.91
3 Dave Dunham 5097.09
4 Edward Alibozek 5064.26
5 Ed Alibozek Jr 4164.81
6 Jay Kolodzinski 3694.55
7 Leigh Schmitt 3242.14
8 John Pelton 3129.14
9 Laura Clark 2946.52
10 Mike Lahey 2922.8
11 Ben Nephew 2761.09
12 Bob Worsham 2704.89
13 Laurel Shortell 2667.88
14 Bill Morse 2631.32
15 David Boles 2607.65
16 Peter Lipka 2585.9
17 Richard Bolt 2454.67
18 Lawrence Dragon 2390.29
19 Dave Hannon 2344.17
20 Paul Hartwig 2313.88

Some All-Time landmarks reached this weekend:
Bob Dion – 85 races
Ed Alibozek Jr. – 75 races
Bob Massaro – 65 races
Dave Dunham – 55 races
Mike Lahey, Martin Glendon, Bill Morse, Jay Kolodzinski – 45 races
Ben Nephew – 30 races
Peter Malinowski and Tom Mack – 20 races
Paul Bazanchuk – 15 races
Tim Mahoney – 10 races
Dave Dunham and Ed Alibozek both passed 5,000 points this weekend.
Chelynn Tetrault passed 1,000 points.

Ed Alibozek talks about the snowshoe series

Sorry about the less than sound, the wind was really blowing!

Week ending 1/18/09

Another pretty good week in the books, finished with 74 miles for three straight 70+ weeks in January. I’m averaging just over 10 miles per day so far this year. This week ended with my first two snowshoe race weekend in about a year. I definitely felt it! The first race at Greylock went well. The field was deep with CMS runners and I was happy to take home 5th place, only 51 seconds out of first. Double-J and I snuck in a climb up Brodie mountain after the race before heading off to NY. The second race was tough, I was beat before we even started. I ended up with my highest place this season (4th) but probably my poorest race this year. I was over 3-minutes behind Jim. We bagged Pelham and Belchertown on the way home along with Mt Lincoln (fire tower). All in all a good week.

Totals:
74 miles
2 races (5th & 4th)

Old pic for this week is from the NCAA D2 XC champs in 1984. I'm struggling in taking 12th place. Old timers might recognize #219 in the background.

snowshoe double - with double (j)

The last snowshoe double I did was last years Cobble Mountain/Curly’s weekend. Well, I’m a year older and it shows. Double-J and I headed out to Adams on Saturday morning, giving ourselves plenty of time to get there without rushing. You never know what the roads are going to be like, but we had no trouble arriving a little ahead of schedule (and right behind Laurel). It was just above zero as we QUICKLY registered and got back into the warm car.

With the “standard” 50 minutes before race time we headed out to warm up. Everything takes longer at a snowshoe race, especially changing gear and never more so than when there are no indoor facilities. Most of the WMAC races are old school style with no indoor facilities due to the remote (and usually beautiful) locations. JJ and I did an easy three miles on the road that circles the Greylock glen. The air was clear and brutally cold but the view of the summit was spectacular.

I quickly changed into race gear, which for this race was the Atlas “bumble-bee” outfit and my direct mount Tubbs 10k snowshoes. I headed out for another 10 minutes of running and a few strides to shake things out while Jim did whatever he does before a race (mostly that is complaining about how lousy he feels). I found out just before the start that the course would be completely different from the other versions of the Glen course. Too bad, I really liked the old course, but I heard that a beaver pond had sprung up and made the old loop unusable. The description of the new course sounded interesting. It would be about 1.5 miles of climb then 2.4 miles of mostly downhill on snowmobile trails. That would suit me fine, I like a tough climb.

The field was the best assembled so far this year with Justin Fyffe the strongest road runner in the group making his debut. Ben Nephew, Matt Cartier, Tim Mahoney, Tim Van Orden and Jim Johnson all could mix it up in the front. I felt that my best strategy would be to get out well before we hit the single-track and try to do as much damage on the climb. I’m not known for my descents so I’d need every second I could get on the climb.

Over 70 runners gathered around the gazebo and after a few thankfully brief instructions we were off. Ben went right to the front with Justin and Jim right behind. Matt was next with Tim Mahoney right behind him and me slightly back. Dang! I thought I was really moving in the first snowmobile section but the guys were already pulling away. I sprinted around Tim just as we got onto the single-track and then around Matt soon after. I was hammering as fast as I could go and it just looked like the top three were moving with no effort at all.

Justin moved to the front on the first climb and eased away from Ben. Jim looked like he was having some trouble and took a couple of spills on the first steep section. I fell on that section as well as I hit some ice. Matt was right behind me and offered some encouragement. Mostly I was encouraged by still being able to see Justin and Ben, and Jim was in low gear and coming back. He actually pulled off the trail and stopped when I caught him. I hoped he was okay, but didn’t spare any oxygen to say anything (I was hurting too bad). I hit the mile in 8:40 and the top 1.5 mile sign in 15:30, so it took nearly 7 minutes to do the half mile of tough climb. That hurt!

The downhill was great, I felt like I was flying. It was my kind of descent, nothing too steep and no twists, and it was all great footing on snowmobile trail. For the most part I kept Ben in sight (on the long straights) but soon I heard talk behind me. I could see Matt out of the corner of my eye on a turn and then noticed that Jim was right with him. He had recovered well and was chewing up the downhill. Jim came by soon after and asked “how far?” I said two and a half and a few strides later saw the 2.5 mile sign, so I was pretty accurate. Unfortunately for Jim he told me afterwards that he was asking how far to go, so my info wasn’t making sense to him. To quote Marisa Tomei I was “dead on balls accurate”.

In the last ½ mile or so, Justin began to run out of gas and Ben began to close on him. At the same time Jim was closing on both. They ended up crossing the line in that order with only 14 seconds between the three. I kept Matt close but couldn’t quite reel him in as he took fourth four second ahead of me. CMS had a strong showing taking 6 of the top 7 and 7 of the top 9. Jim mentioned to Matt how good he’d look in a CMS singlet but he didn’t seem to take the bait.

There wasn’t much time stand around in wet gear with the temps still in the single digits. Jim and I quickly changed and headed out for another 3 miles on the road, with Justin along. He noted that during one of his 4:30 am runs this week it was 18 below zero, which made today seem comfortable! Jim took a bad spill on the warm-down, I guess we should have used a traction device on our shoes. Live and learn.

After getting some hot cocoa and some cookies we beat feet for Lanesborough. The short drive was made a bit longer due to a closed road cutting across the flank of Mt Greylock. We scouted out the old Brodie mountain ski area (Snowy Owl) but there didn’t seem to be a good place to park. We parked just outside of the entrance and changed clothes once again. I had hoped to hike up in about 45-50 minutes then run down in 10-15 minutes. I felt a bit tired but not dead-on-my-feet. Jim tends to move a bit more slowly than me (except when racing). He takes FOREVER to change clothes and complains the entire time. Unfortunately I’m still not sure when he is serious or not. For example, he told me he was really hung over and he complained about it all day. Later on during the trip he told me he hadn’t done any drinking at all.

Anyway, we hiked up Brodie Mountain starting at 1,400’ and gaining 1,200’ in 1.5 miles. The early going was the steepest going right up the ski slope, and then we hit a nice 4-wheel drive road that was much more gentle. Jim didn’t seem to have as much fun as I did. The conditions were perfect, it was cold but there was no wind and it was sunny although the clouds were closing in. We hit the top in 58 minutes and then spent 11 minutes on the tower which had a glass enclosed cab. The outside was coated in a couple of inches of ice which made the going a little tricky. There were some great views which definitely made it worthwhile. We quickly made our descent via a ski lift which was a lot of fun. There was a good 6” of powder covering the crusty base which was fine for shuffling down the slope. We were back at the car in 32 minutes, for a total trip of 2.9 miles with 1,200 climb and descent in 1:41

We headed for Albany to our hotel and some rest. Jim went on and on about how he set a course record and ran something like 22 minutes for five miles and how they probably don’t use the course anymore because everyone would be depressed at how slow their times were compared to his. He also went on and on about how slow I ran on the descent and how good he is compared to me. It was all true so I couldn’t really argue. I got us a room at the Hilton specifically because it had an indoor pool and (I hoped) a whirlpool. It did and soon after checking in we settled in for 20 minutes of hydro-therapy. After dinner I was ready to call it a night, but Jim ended up staying up ‘til all hours. Something about the room being cold, I don’t know where that came from. I slept with just a sheet and had the blanket thrown on the floor. I guess I never knew how delicate Jim is J

Race day #2 dawned with snow, which was something of a surprise. I had some hotel room coffee then some “lobby” coffee which ranks well below Dunkin’s but way above Starbucks. The drive to the race was very short and probably the funniest moment of the trip was Jim’s reaction to the snowman at the turn into the school. I dropped off my five extra pair of snowshoes (for loaners) and we headed out for a three mile warm-up. Jim noted many times that I was running “like and old man”, I had to keep reminding him that I am an old man! Racing the day after a race is much harder as you get older. I was already hurting just trying to get loose. We hit the gym and changed gear again; I went with a tights top and CMS technical long sleeve and a single pair of tights on my legs. Both choices were probably one layer short of what would have been comfortable. I did another mile on the trail and headed for the line.

An amazing 173 runners were lined up and nearly half of them had never done a snowshoe race before. Jim planned on going out behind Josh Merlis (the RD and last years winner). I hoped to just stay on my feet and get through the race. We started with a loop around the field that was all powder. It was wild as snow was flying everywhere and you couldn’t see at all! Jim went right to the front and had a lead by the end of the first 300m. I was back in 6th place and quickly made my way around a couple of fast starters. I could see Josh in front and his teammate further in front. The last time I saw Jim was on the power line about a mile into the race and he was already nearly a minute ahead of me. So much for sitting behind Josh J

Jim cruised to an easy 2 minute victory on a course that was definitely good for him (flat and fast). I stayed in fourth the entire way and except for long straight-aways couldn’t see anyone else. I was pretty much dead tired by the finish. Jim seemed to still have a lot of energy so we headed out for 2 miles before we got too cold to move. My gas tank was pretty much on empty by this point. We hung out for the awards ceremony where a lot of WMAC folks did well in age groups. Then it was off for a town-bagging adventure.

The final stop would be at the Pelham and Belchertown line where we’d get 3 miles and bag two towns. Jim swore that I never mentioned anything about a mountain or a tower at this site, but I’m sure I did. We parked at the edge of a driveway after scouting out a trail that seemed to go to the tower. The owner was nice enough to allow us to park on the edge of his property while we did the short run to the tower. It was something of a bonus to get part of the run in on the M & M trail. I’ve run parts of it in Agawam, Westfield, etc. but any time I can tower bag and town bag AND trail run at the same time is a major bonus.

The run was a gently climbing jog up the M & M to the Mt Lincoln fire tower. We both used Kathoola’s instead of snowshoes and they worked fine. We spent a few minutes on top checking out the view then ran down the access road and looped back to the car for a 24 minute run in both towns. This was a great way to finish the weekend (for me at least, I’m still not sure how Jim felt about all of this). This was also a rare treat as I’ve done almost all of my town bagging alone.

Totals for the weekend:
2 races – 5th place and 4th place (top 40+ in both)
2 fire towers (I’ve now visited 38 of the 55 towers in Mass)
2 Mass towns (I’ve now visited 320 of the 351 towns in Mass)
double-j & double-d on Mt Lincoln

In all 23 hardy folk did both races (nearly 1/3 of the field from Greylock!)
Edward Alibozek
David Boles

Joe Bouck

Ken Clark
Laura Clark
Jeff Clark
Bob Dion
Larry Dragon
Dave Dunham
Martin Glendon
Bill Glendon
Jessica Hageman
Jim Johnson
Konrad Karolczuk
Mike Lahey
Jodie Lahey
Brian Northan
Jan Rancatti
Laurel Shortell
Richard Teal
Chelynn Tetreault
Stephanie Willie
Chris Winslow

Next weekend will be another double with the Hoot toot and whistle 5k snowshoe on Saturday and Curly’s record run 4m snowshoe on Sunday. I’m hoping to also finish off the last three towns in Western Mass (Mt Washington, Sheffield, and New Marborough) and maybe bag a couple of fire towers as well.

Racing schedule

Here are my planned races for the first half of this year. I hope to get/stay healthy enough to do all of these races. The “goal” races will be the Grand Prix and the Mountain series which leads into Mt Washington and the US championships at Cranmore. I’ll have to work on my descending! The current plan is to take two weeks after Ascutney to hike the Long Trail (271 miles from Mass-Canada, through Vermont).

1/17/2009 Greylock glen 3.5 mile snowshoe, the first of a two race weekend
1/18/2009 Brave the blizzard 4 mile snowshoe, the second race of the weekend
1/24/2009 Hoot toot & whistle 3.1 mile snowshoe, another two race weekend
1/25/2009 Curly's 4 mile snowshoe, a tough second race of the weekend
1/31/2009 Northfield 3.8 mile snowshoe (I'm the race director and won it last year)
2/7/2009 Sidehiller 4 mile snowshoe that is a qualifier for the National champs
2/8/2009 Moody Springs 5 mile snowshoe, another two race weekend
2/14/2009 Valentines 5 mile, a rare road race
2/22/2009 USATF NE 10 miles, I hope to run sub 60
3/8/2009 USSSA 6.2 mile snowshoe National champs in Oregon
3/15/2009 USATF NE 13.1 miles Maybe I'll be in shape by March?
3/28/2009 Gilmanton 3.1 mile, 3-4 km is brutal
4/5/2009 NEOC Orienteering meet
4/11/2009 The River 10 mile trail race
4/19/2009 NEOC O-meet
4/25/2009 NEOC O-meet
4/26/2009 NEOC O-meet
5/9/2009 The Bear 3.1 mile trail race (New race by Petey)
5/16/2009 USATF NE 7.4 miles, New England 12K champs
5/23/2009 Wachusett 4.3 miles, start of the Mountain series
5/31/2009 Pack 10 mile, race #2 of the Mountain series
6/7/2009 USATF NE 3.1 miles. Will it be hot? Yes!
6/13/2009 Northfield 6.4 miles NE trail champs
6/20/2009 Mt Washington - Only one hill
6/27/2009 Coventry 3.1 mile naked XC race
6/28/2009 USATF National Mountain championships
7/5/2009 Loon - Race #5 of the Mountain series
7/11/2009 Ascutney - Race #6 of the Mountain series
25 Years ago (in April) I ran my first 10,000 meters. Here is a proof from the race. I'm on the left and teammate Joe Regan is on the right. Note that even then I had my ankle taped up from some injury.

Week ending 1/11/09

Well, another week of 70+ miles in the books. I had 74 miles this week which gives me five weeks in a row over 70. I’ve only been running for 11 weeks since the stress fracture and I’m just starting to feel like I’m turning the corner and getting into shape. With only six weeks until the Grand Prix 10 mile I better be getting in shape. 79 days and counting since my last day off.



I was supposed to miss a day this week, but I never got the cortisone shot in my ankle. My second pair of orthotics turned out to have a crack in them. Dr. F. didn’t want to give me the injection then have me in broken orthotics, so it will be at least two weeks until we revisit the possible shot. I’m still going to PT at least two times a week which means I’m only running with Dan a couple of times a week.



The weekend was busy, check out my Saturday stuff in the post below, with climbing and racing. It is still very early in the snowshoe season (only two races completed so far) but my chances of repeating have diminished as a few guys who are clearly faster than me have mentioned that they will be doing a bunch of Dion WMAC series races. As Double-J would say “you’ll never win with that attitude”. I’ll give it my best and see what happens.



There will be a lot of racing this month! The next three weekends have six snowshoe races and I’m planning on doing at least five of them. I’m also looking into the cost of flights to Oregon for the USSSA national championships. If I can stay healthy until March I plan on going.



The final run of the week was a nice run in the snow with Petey on Sunday. We did just over 80 minutes around Chelmsford just after sunrise. There wasn’t really a sunrise to see as it was still snowing pretty heavily at the time. We were out at the perfect time for those kind of conditions, still early enough that there was no real traffic except for the snowplows.

Fun (?) in the snow

Well, it has been a while since I did any “bagging” so with a trip to Western Mass for some snowshoe racing I thought the time was right to plan out some interesting runs/hikes. I did a bunch of pre-race planning, lots of map reading and calculating drive and hike times to come up with a do-able plan for the day of the Turner Trail Snowshoe race in Pittsfield.

I was out the door at 4:30 AM with a brief stop at Dunkin Donuts (America, and I, run on Dunkins). For most of the drive I had the near full moon in front of me and a brightening sky behind me. The traffic was negligible at that time of day and I made good time, arriving in Steven’s corner (in the town of Richmond) at 7 AM – 162 miles into my day. I gave myself 1:20 to hike and hoped to get the fire tower on Lenox Mountain and if time permitted hiking along the ridge to Yokun Seat which was #51 on the Mass. 100 highest mountains list. Oddly enough Lenox Mountain which is higher is not on the list. I’m not sure what height differential they used to come up with the list, but really don’t care, if it is listed I hope to hike it.

It was 8 degrees when I got out of the car so I was glad to be testing out my new winter hiking gear. I have a ton of running gear but very little that is meant for hiking. I tried to find the 4-wheel drive road that is shown on the Topo but couldn’t find it. It didn’t really matter as it was pretty obvious where I need to go, just angle up and Northeast and I couldn’t miss the summit. The climb was very steep gaining nearly 800’ in about ¾ of a mile. The surface was 4” of dusty snow and then a solid crust that was easily punched through. The steeper pitches had a lot of ice under that which made the going a bit slow in spots. I hit the ridge and a couple of minutes later was on top (25 minute climb). I took a bunch of pictures of the sunrise and then checked out the woods toward the other mountain. It was pretty thick and I figured I did not have the time to get over and back and then still make it to the race on time. I checked out the fire tower which is no longer used (last staffed in 1988) but still in good shape. The steps for the bottom two landings had been removed to keep people from climbing. I gave it a go anyway, but once I got about 10’ off the ground I figured that one slip could end the hike in a bad way. I shuffled back down to the car, alternating a jog and slide and was back in 15 minutes.

Bench on Lenox Mountain and Fire Tower


Next up was getting to the race. I took some back roads and was at the Pittsfield state forest by 8:40 AM, which was just a little ahead of schedule. It was really cold and I was shivering in the couple of minutes it took to register. Laurel Shortell was first into the parking lot, not taking any chances on her 80+ consecutive WMAC series races. Tim Mahoney and Abby Woods pulled in right before me. I organized my race gear and with 50 minutes to go headed out for a warm-up. I bumped into Tim Van Orden who looked different with the mountain-man beard and funky hat (he looked even more “unique” when he dressed for the race with basketball shorts over his tights). I heard that it was a mile to the Skyline trail via the Berry Pond Circuit road and figured that’d be a good warm-up. The road climbs steadily and the footing was well packed by snowmobiles. I ran up without snowshoes and hit the turn in 17 minutes. I guessed it was probably around 1.5 miles, and the 11 minutes it took me to run back down clinched it for me that the course was going to be longer than 5 km. I was surprised to bump into Ben Nephew on the way back to the start, I hadn’t seen him since the summer. I got changed into my race gear and headed out for another mile on snowshoes. The field was looking to be pretty strong with Ben, Tim M, TiVo and Matt Cartier. It looked even stronger when three yutes from Williams College blew by me on the trail.

Tim Mahoney and Abby Woods at Turner Trail Snowshoe



We got some final instructions on where the course went and how it was marked and off we went. I felt lousy right from the start, something about the fast starts just doesn’t agree with me. I thought it would go out a bit controlled as we had a the road for 1.5 miles and there was room to go 5 or 6 across. Ben and two of the Williams kids went to the front and along with Matt they began hammering up the hill. I tucked in behind TiVo and wondered if I’d be able to hold on. One of the Williams kids was first to fall off the lead group and we each moved around him. About half-way up the hill I saw Matt begin to work his way back through the field as the fast start was catching up with him. Man, he seemed to be way over-dressed with a jacket on! He did offer some words (or grunts) of encouragement as I went by him and TiVo as we passed about a mile of climb. I could see Ben had lost the lead to Corey Watts. Watts had last run a WMAC race two years ago. He took the 8 mile race at Covered Bridges in a sprint with his teammate, he also won the 5,000 meters last year at the Dartmouth relays, so it was no surprise that he was schooling the field. I bridged the gap to Tim Mahoney just after we turned onto the Skyline trail (13:52) and tried to get some distance on him during the last of the climb.

Apparently Watts put enough distance on Ben during this great scenic section that Ben didn’t see him turn onto the Turner trail for the descent. I must have been just far enough behind Ben that I didn’t see him miss the turn. I’m not sure how he could have missed it as it was marked with arrows, flags, and surveyor tape and he is an experienced trail runner. Hey, it happens to the best of us. Anyway, I took the turn and glanced back to see Tim still right there. Downhill running is not my strength and this type of downhill was not for me. It seemed like we’d go 50 meters then do a 180 as we switchbacked down the hill. I couldn’t get around the corners without really slowing. I probably should have worn a shoe with a better cleat, but I wanted the lightest possible shoe for the climb. Tim told me afterward that he also had trouble as one foot kept sliding out. I can only imagine how the trail was after 20 or 30 people passed, my guess was that it got churned up and pretty slick.

About ¼ of the way down the hill I heard Tim talking to someone and then on one of the turns I saw that it was Ben. I was really surprised that he was behind, but he was descending fast. He came up behind me and I stepped off the trail to let him by and then tried to draft off of him. That worked for about 200 meters and he pulled ahead. Soon after I heard TiVo charging hard down the hill. By about ½ way down I was pulling off again as he flew by. I tried to go with him with little success. Next up was Matt Cartier who asked me which side I wanted him to go by on. I moved to the right and he hammered by as I mentioned how much it sucked to build a lead on the climb and not be able to hold it. He accelerated away as we hit the bottom. I didn’t realize how little we had to go at that point, nor did it make a difference. Watts took the win in 34:23 with Ben 1:14 behind. It might have been and interesting finish if Ben hadn’t lost a minute on his detour, of course Watts may have been running just hard enough to win so you never know. Matt closed to within 9 seconds of Ben as he passed TiVo on the last stretch. I was 21 seconds behind Matt and 18 behind Tim. Tim Mahoney took 6th 32 seconds after I crossed the line. So the CMS guys took 2, 4, 5, 6 and Abby Woods was top woman in 13th place. This was Abby’s 7th snowshoe race and her 7th win! The only woman with more WMAC wins is Kelli Lusk (17). Abby’s 7 consecutive wins (in races run) is the third best “streak” trailing only my 8 from 2000-2001 and Kelli Lusk’s 13 from 02-21-04 to 02-18-07. The longest win streak in consecutively HELD races is Rich Bolt’s four wins in 2003.

I quickly changed clothes and headed out for about two miles of easy running on the trail with Ben and TiVo. Ben let me test out his Kahtoola’s which worked well on the packed snow. By 11:20 I was back in the car and speeding off to my next destination. I was already 20 minutes behind schedule and wanted to make sure I hit the remaining mountains before sunset. I had planned on scouting out Brodie Mountain (now a closed ski area called Snowy owl) but didn’t really have time to stop. It looked do-able and I’m hoping to bag that fire tower before the end of the month. I got a nice view of Greylock from the West which is unusual for me, I’ve never been on Route 7 before so I found the view to be great.

I arrived at my next destination, Whitcomb summit in Florida MA, at 12:15 and got my gear on for a bushwhack to a couple of summits. I was surprised by the number of snowmobiles at the abandoned hotel on the summit, there was barely enough room for me to park. There was a snowmobile trail that headed right over Whitcomb hill (2,240’) and it continued on right over to Flat Rock Hill (2,195’). The running was a lot better than I expected and I got two miles of packed trail using my Northern Lite snowshoes, but I probably could have gone in running shoes. Neither summit had views so I spent a lot less time than expected, it was also only about 15 degrees and breezy so I was back in the car quickly.
Ruin on Whitcomb summit

Next up was a 60 mile drive to Athol, which is probably my favorite town name. Actually I went through the Athol and “ended” up in Phillipston. The last mile or so the road got narrower and my left turn was not a plowed road. Luckily I always carry a full set of maps and figured out another approach (which also turned out to be a road that was not plowed all the way through). Prospect Hill (1,383’) road did have a pull-out at a gate and a sign that said “hikers welcome”. That was a pleasant surprise. I decided to go with my Kahtoola’s for this trek as the trail looked to be crusty packed snow. It was only a 6 minute run to the fire tower. There was a large amount of ice storm damage around the clearing and the tower itself had a 2” thick coating of ice. I was glad for the Kahtoola’s as I made my way up the 68’ tower. The view was worth it. I could see Wachusett mountain to the East and Monadnock loomed in the North. I gingerly made my way down the stairs and then ran back to the car. I was still on schedule with one stop to go.
View of Monadnock

Forty miles later I arrived in Harvard at Pinnacle hill (612’). This was the easiest fire tower of the day. I could see it about 50 meters away from the road and quickly ran over, shot some pictures and got back in the car. This was the second easiest fire tower to bag so far, behind one that I drove right up to. Thirty-five more miles and I was back home, just before sunset.

Totals:
341 miles driven
12+ miles run
11.25 hours travel
3 fire towers bagged
2 Mass 100 highest bagged

Pittsfield snowshoe resutls

What a long day! I bagged 3 fire towers and 3 of the Mass 100 highest peaks and in between it all ran the Pittsfield 4.3 mile snowshoe race. Full story on Monday. Here are the results and a video about Laurel's streak....

Top 15
PL NAME AGE TIME Team
01. Corey Watts 20 0:34:23 Williams
02. Ben Nephew 33 0:35:37 CMS
03. Matt Cartier 33 0:35:46
04. Tim Van Orden 40 0:35:9 CMS
05. Dave Dunham 44 0:36:07 CMS
06. Tim Mahoney 29 0:36:39 CMS
07. Matt Westerlund 36 0:37:01
08. Matthew Deady 21 0:37:52 Williams
09. Geoff Rodriguez 20 0:38:58 Williams
10. Brian Northan 33 0:39:20
11. Ken Clark 46 0:39:26 Shenipsit Striders
12. Paul Bazanchuk 54 0:39:28
13. Abby Woods 30 0:40:02 CMS
14. Jay Kolodzinski 29 0:40:53
15. Todd Brown 44 0:42:23

WMAC snowshoe milestones

With one race completed in the 2009 Dion WMAC snowshoe series some individuals have reached milestones.

Brian McCarthy (525.40) and Abby Woods (543.80) both just passed the 500 point mark. Abby did so in an impressive 6 races, all of which she won. Maureen Roberts and Matt Cartier both passed the 1,000 point mark. Matt is averaging an excellent 94.02 points per race. Larry Dragon and Bob Massaro both passed the 2,000 point total. John Pelton has now amassed more than 3,000 points.

Konrad Karolczuk continues to lead the way in the total number of WMAC races raced. Konrad ran his 85th race at Woodford. Dave Dunham ran his 50th, Larry Dragon hit number 40, Howard Bassett tallied his 20th, and James Pawlicki finished his 15th.


Top 10 All-time Point and Finish leaders listed below:
1 Bob Dion---------6,620.32
2 Ken Clark--------5,379.09
3 Ed Alibozek-----4,608.53
4 Dave Dunham ---4,519.11
5 Ed Alibozek Jr--3,877.92
6 Jay Kolodzinski--3,346.68
7 Leigh Schmitt---3,242.14
8 John Pelton------3,070.05
9 Laura Clark-------2,733.53
10 Bob Worsham---2,560.96
Konrad K - on the right

1 Konrad Karolczuk—85
2 Richard Busa-------83
3 Bob Dion------------81
4 Laurel Shortell-----81
5 Laura Clark---------73
6 Ed Alibozek Jr.----71
7 Edward Alibozek---62
8 Ken Clark-----------61
9 Bob Massaro-------61
10 Dave Dunham-----50

Snowshoe magazine

I was interviewed by snowshoe magazine. You can check it out:
http://www.snowshoemag.com/view_content.cfm?content_id=460

Weekending 01-04-09

Info on the pic below...


Finished up with another 70 mile week, that makes four in a row. I also had three races in 6 days which is a little aggressive considering my lack of fitness. New Year's day was damn cold, so cold that we did not do the ocean plunge. I was sort of relieved. The race itself was not fun with bad footing and howling winds. The only good thing I had to say after was that it would be easy to run a faster 5 km. I was true to my word, knocking 55 seconds off at the Fudgicle race two days later. The loop course in Tewksbury is also a bit long (3.15) and I told double-j that I was hoping to break 6's. He said he'd run with me and promptly disappeared down the street. I hit the mile in 5:36 and tried to keep it together. The second mile was a bit slower (5:47) and I started to think that if I had a decent kick I might break 18. I hit 3m in 17:02 (5:38) and kicked like mad. I got 17:59.2 on my watch and looked over at the timer who just said "nope". Ugh! Oh, well....if I can keep knocking 55 seconds off my time every week I'll have a decent time in a couple of months :-)
JJ won the race in 16:23 which is one of the fastest times in a few years (Rich Bolt ran the last sub-16 a few years back). I have the CR of 14:57 from 1991.

I couldn't find a picture from the 1991 Fudge series, but here is a cool shot from 1991. The CMHC 10 mile in Worcester. From Left to Right: #2 Rich Doiron, #42 dd, #40 Rachid Tbahi, #5 Paul Gompers, #3 Scott Bagley, #9 Larry Olsen, #4 Eric Morse, #38 Pat Gillooly, #23 Steve O'connell, and in the "Bikes not Bombs" singlet - Mike Casner.

Results - Jan 1 & Jan 3

01-01-2009

I think the 5k was long (3.28) and the 10k may have been a bit short. Of course, I could have run like crap and the 10k guys may have run great!

5k course: http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=264381

Hangover Classic - FIVE KILOMETER ROAD RACE
JANUARY 1, 2009
===== =================== === ===============
1 ALEX BROWN 21 M 18:40 6:01
2 DAVE DUNHAM 44 M 18:55 6:06 CMS
DRC runners:

Rose – 30:14
Cathy – 32:45
Denise – 33:12
John – 33:14
Danielle – 33:18
Greg – 33:28
Martin – 35:28
Stephanie – 37:36

TEN KILOMETER ROAD RACE
===== =================== ===== = ======= =====
1 TERRANCE SHEA 35 M 32:37 5:15
2 NICHOLAS WHEELER 22 M 33:13 5:21
3 ANDY MCCARRON 26 M 33:22 5:23 CMS
4 DANNY GOUGH 40 M 34:31 5:34
5 JIM JOHNSON 31 M 34:50 5:37 CMS
6 DAN VERRINGTON 46 M 35:28 5:43 CMS
7 DAVID QUINTAL 45 M 35:50 5:46 CMS
8 MICHAEL QUINTAL M 37:52 6:06
9 JIMMIE COCHRAN 34 M 38:12 6:09
10 FABBIO PIERGENTILI 45 M 39:12 6:19

01-03-2009

Fudgicle series 5k (plus a little)
Tewskbury, MA, January 3, 2009 Sunny 22 Degrees
1. Jim Johnson 16:24 Salem, NH CMS
2. Dave Dunham 18:00 Bradford CMS
3. Dave Michaud 21:10 Billerica
4. Glenn Stewart 21:46 N. Chelmsford
5. Mike Hurton 21:54 Tewksbury
6. Rich Blake 22:24 Tyngsboro
7. Mark Blaisdell 22:37 Wilmington
8. Dave Tyler 23:00 Lowell
9. Mike Ferris 23:06 Litchfield, NH
10. Mike Sheehan 23:12 Lowell

Cathy Dunham 32:21 Bradford DRC

2008 - A look back

The year was kicked off with the now semi-traditional Ocean plunge at the Winners Circle Hangover classic race. I guess this race is a classic; it has been around for a long time, but what is up with races calling themselves a classic? Shouldn’t it be up to the runners to decide which races are a classic? Not to go off on a rant but, I really don’t know how a first year race can call itself a classic; unless they mean it in the sense “Coke Classic” used it. Like a throw-back to the “good old days” of racing. Anyway, I survived the plunge this year and the lifeguard never had to get up (although he kept a close eye on me). Dave Quintal and I began a year-long battle that had us close in every race.


Later that first week of the year I trekked out to Albany and stopped for runs that encompassed eleven towns in Mass that I’d never run in previously. This was a nerve-wracking ride as the gas gauge was well below “E” (even when I crouched down as low as I could in the seat) and I ended up coasting on all of the downhill sections. I didn’t run out of gas but it was the closest I’d ever gotten.

The next week I went with Dan and Jim Pawlicki to the Dartmouth relays. This race IS a classic, going back to the Big Bang (and possibly further). I’d first run at Dartmouth as a Billerica High (go Indians!) Sophomore in 1981. On that day I’d finished in 6th place in 9:41, breaking Kevin Curtin’s school record. Fast forward 27 years and I was hoping to set a masters PR for 5,000 meters (not 5 km, which is for road running). While jogging around the track I introduced myself to Jim Johnson, which from his side of the conversation must have been funny as he had run with me back when he was at U-Lowell. I invited him to join me and Dan for our afternoon runs as Dan had noticed from Jim’s blog that he trained with some of the MVS guys nearby. Club affiliations have never been a big deal for us; we both enjoy training with guys from any club. The more the merrier. Double-J ended up finishing in second place, Dan got 4th and Jim and I had a nice battle with Jim taking me by a little less than 1 second. I did get my 40+ personal best with a 16:28. We were joined by Eric Morse, who drove down to watch but not race, for a nice warm-down. I was impressed with Double-J’s memory of events long past that I had no recollection of. He seemed enthusiastic about running with us, little did I know.







Al Bernier and I took some time out of our busy racing/training/hiking schedule to take a shot at the record for the fastest ascent of all of the county high points in RI. We actually started the day with a Mass county high point and finished with three Connecticut county high points. Sandwiched in-between we ascended the five Rhode Island county high points in 2:44:06. I’ve heard others call attempts to do this “Into thick air”. Very droll, I wish I had thought of it. On the same weekend I began an improbable winning streak in snowshoe races. I was the surprise winner at North Pond, Cobble Mountain,

Curly’s record run (with a great warm-down to the Highest Natural Body of Water in Mass), and Northfield Mountain. I was surprised with each of the wins. At each race there was at least one guy who I think should have beaten me. I guess that is why we actually run the races. My sister gave me a lot of grief at the Northfield race noting “It is so un-cool to win your own race”. In January I ran 419 miles which would end up being the best mileage month for me in 2008. As is often the case, the year starts out with oodles of promise but fizzles as injuries get in the way.


The snowshoe winning streak was broken when Kevin Tilton toyed with me at the Sidehiller four-mile and eventually beat me by 6 seconds. Kevin did some sort of all day XC-ski the day before, so maybe he wasn’t toying with me as much as just making sure he won. Prior to the race I bagged a New Hampshire fire tower with a run up/down Green Mountain in my favorite NH town name – Effingham. It sounds vaguely like a swear word. My training was going well, so I skipped snowshoe racing for a weekend to head down to Martha’s Vineyard for a long race. This was a build-up to running the 50 km national championships in March. Ken Tripp and I went together and had a fun weekend that included running to the highest point in Dukes County and vainly searching for a fire tower. We also checked out where some scenes from Jaw’s were filmed and I ate the heaviest pizza (cheese burger pizza weighing about 10 pounds) I’ve ever had. The race went well, with Ken taking fourth and me taking 7th. Unfortunately I tweaked a calf muscle which put a major damper on my training over the next few weeks. I ended up having to pass on the 50 km race and even four weeks after the injury could only “jog” through the New Bedford ½ marathon. It was a weird experience starting way back in the pack and coasting along. Running a race without pressure to actually race is something I’m not used to. I also hope to NEVER get used to it.

One of the early spring highlights was the 17th running of the Merrimack River trail race. Steve Peterson is the director and I help him out (as do a bushel of other people). We’ve pretty much got this thing dialed-in after this many years. Dan shows up on Friday and we run the course with him putting down a white line along the trail. Some of the white line lasts from one year to the next. Anyone who goes off course is generally laughed at. On race day this year it was raining like crazy and the skies looked apocalyptic. Right before we started registration the rain stopped and it actually turned out to be quite a nice day. Kevin Tilton had one heck of a race running a very fast time and CMS took the top five spots and 10 out of the top 13. Tim Van Orden (the raw food dude) stayed over the night before and I thought a jet plane was taking off when he switched on his industrial strength blender. I think you can use it to create mulch.

In early May I went up to Vermont for a race and a stop at Eric Morse’s house. On the way I bagged the summit of Mt Cardigan (NH fire tower) which was a very attention-grabbing run due to spring snow at the upper reaches. Eric and I then bagged the fire tower on Mt Elmore in Vermont. The hardest part was the last couple of flights of stairs up the tower as it swayed in the breeze. I was surprised to find someone (Eric) more nervous about falling than I was. The morning of the race we did a short run in Montpelier to check out the tower just above the castle, and then I was off to Ripton to race. This is a point to point course and in 2007 we had a decent tail-wind, this year there was a brutal head-wind. I guess things do tend to even out. The following weekend was just as busy with an XC race in Canterbury that I jogged through in anticipation of the next day’s New England 6 km championships. I got 9th in the XC race, just out-kicking the lovely and speedy Christin Doneski. I had hoped for a top 10 40+ finish at the 6 km and gave it my all and could only muster 13th and 48th overall. The aforementioned Tim Van Orden (or T-VO) joined CMS that morning and assisted our master’s team against the always strong Whirlaway team.

Earlier in the year I had secured access to Croydon Peak which is a NH fire tower and a County high point. The available date coincided with the 6 km race date, so Al and I packed up and drove to meet the rest of our group. It made for quite a long day with nearly four hours of hiking to bag Croydon and another peak. We did get the added bonus of seeing all of the wild boar, which are hunted on this private game preserve, come out at dusk.

The final weekend of May saw the USATF NE mountain series kick-off. It seemed like the fields were especially strong this year as many newbies were testing the waters in anticipation of running Mt Washington (which was the mountain running national championships). A very strong field ran the Wachusett mountain race and we had more than thirty people do the warm-down around the mountain. This had to be the biggest warm-down group I’ve ever run with. It was great to meet and chew the fat with runners from a bunch of different clubs.

In mid-June I headed out to Western NY with Al for the US 24-hour Orienteering championships. We went out a day early to bag a few County high points in NY; it probably wasn’t the best way to “rest” the day before a 24 hour race. The race itself was tough due to rain which was prevalent throughout the competition. When it wasn’t raining you were getting drenched by wet brush. Just after sunrise (19 hours into the competition) we both had enough and called it a day. Despite being out less than the allowed time we were still able to muster a 3rd place, covering over 49 miles and climbing/descending a little less than 10,000’. The following weekend was the race that I always aim for, the Mt Washington road race. We went to Atitash on Thursday and I had my closest wild animal encounter ever. While running on the trails near the Saco River, I stumbled upon a mother bear and two cubs. The cubs climbed a tree and the mother stood about 30 yards away (30 meters for the metric-minded). I immediately raised my hands above my head (to make me seem more menacing?) and started calling “hey bear, yo bear” as I backed away. The mother did a 10 yard charge and pulled up as I kept backing away. I kept up my “hey bear, yo bear” mantra the entire way back to the condo. I think my pulse was higher then than it was during the entire race. The race had the deepest field to date and although I snuck under 1:10 I as not in the top 30. That is one reason that place goals are rarely a good idea, stick with time goals. You can’t control who shows up and how they run; you can only run your own race. As Bob Hodge once said at Mt Washington “It is really a personal challenge. You are running against yourself more than anybody else. If someone went by me I wouldn’t give a damn”. Classic Hodgie!

The wildest weather for a race this year had to be at Cranmore Mountain. It wasn’t bad during our warm-up, but as race time drew near the skies opened up and not only was it coming down in buckets there was also thunder and lightning to deal with. I ran little loops inside the ski lodge to stay loose and tracked down Paul Kirsch to see if he was going to delay the start. Paul felt it wasn’t going to get any better, so I went down to the base of the lodge and told the crowd that we were starting on time. Someone in the throng said “what about the lightning” and as the thunder rumbled I declared “there’s no lightning”. The race went off without a hitch and the 2-loop version of the course seemed to suit people a lot better than the previous year’s 3-loop killer course.

Loon trio - me, double-j, Kevin T


There were some surprises the following week at the Loon Mountain race. This is one of my favorite mountain races; the course has a very European feel to it. It starts out easy and just gets more and more difficult. The signature section is the Walking Boss trail which averages over 30% grade for over ½ mile. The big surprises of the day were Eric Blake (US mountain team), Eric Morse, and Craig Fram showing up for the race. I ran alone for most of the race, but started passing the remnants of the early lead pack on the upper reaches of the mountain. The Walking Boss section was wild; I could see Justin Fyffe (who was leading and eventually would win the series) on ALL FOURS making his way up the slope. It was one of my best runs of the year; I took 5th overall and 2nd in the 40+. This also closed the gap on T-VO, giving me a shot to win the 40+ category for the series and possibly take third overall.

The series closed out in mid-July at Mt Ascutney. I traveled to the race with Double-J who was training quite a bit with me and Dan. He was also doing a lot of the races we were doing and often talked about his clubs lack of enthusiasm for racing. Eric Morse surprised again by showing up at this race, but he and others took it out so slowly that I (of all people) actually led the race for the short time. Order was restored to the universe and Eric powered his way to a new master’s course record with his win. I held on for third place and garnered enough points to hold of T-VO and win the 40+ in the Mountain series. We had another huge warm-down (or really a warm-down-up) as we ran up to the summit and climbed the fire tower on top. Most of the guys chose to run down to the base as well after the awards ceremony was conducted at the finish line (unusual). Rumor has it that the race will go to the summit and possibly use trails part-way through the race. I hope not, I like the road race aspect and don’t really care for the couple of sets of ladders you have to go up on the trail. I don’t want to test myself on those under race conditions.
I think it was pretty soon after this trip that

Double-J decided he wanted to run for CMS after the road Grand Prix ended in October. He was never pressured by me or Dan to join CMS.

At the end of July I started having some back/hip problems. I missed a couple of days running because it looked like it might be a stress fracture, which you can’t mess with if it is located in the hip (as opposed to other locations where it is okay to continue running?). Anyway, it turned out to be muscular, most likely a problem around the SI joint. I was a bit tentative running the Yankee homecoming 10 mile, partly because of my back and partly due to a migraine that hit me that day. The race itself went okay, just slower than hoped for. At around 5 miles I caught (who I thought was) the top woman. Soon after that I heard a spectator yell to her “Third Woman”. Yikes, so much for beating the top woman!

Just over a week later I ran my best Grand Prix race at the Bridge of Flowers 10 km. I had a decent run, especially on the big hill. T-VO and I had a good back n’ forth race, he ended up taking me by 6 seconds with most of that in the last 400m. The only people to pass me or Tim in the last 3 miles were Norm Larson who is a great 50+ runner and the woman’s overall champ who outkicked us both in the last mile. I finally broke into the top 10 with a ninth place finish in the 40+. The highlight of the day, beyond the race, was a great warm-down with a dozen guys up to the summit of Mount Massaemett to visit the only stone fire tower in the state.

Dan, Dave Quintal, Joe Shairs, and I decided earlier in the summer to take a shot at the Lynn woods relay master’s record. Dan and I have talked about this a few times over the last couple of years but getting four master’s to toe the line uninjured is a Herculean task. This year things fell together and we felt the record was “do-able”. Joe led off with a quick 13:18, followed by Dave kicking in strongly with a 14:04. Dan started slowly as is his wont, but ran the fastest last ½ mile of all of us, running 13:47 for the 2.5 mile trail loop. I was the anchor leg and kicked liked mad hoping to break 14 and coming up just short with a 14:03. We broke the old record by just over a minute. My course record (12:05) still stands from 1991. I finished off the day anchoring the DRC team’s relay and finished just as it was getting dark. Two days later I rolled my ankle badly at the beginning of a run with Dan and Double-J. I think that favoring my leg after that may have ultimately been the proverbial straw that broke my back.

Me and Tim on the summit of Mansfield

On the final day of August I was headed to a race up Mt Mansfield (the highest point in Vermont) and as I walked to the car my back started to hurt a lot. It got worse as I drove to the race and felt terrible warming-up. I couldn’t bail at this point, so I raced and ended up winning. By the time I was back in the car for the 3+ hour drive home my back was not feeling good at all. It was murder when I got out of the car at home and I knew it was not good. I couldn’t sleep because every time I moved (and I move a lot) it would be brutal. I got an MRI and the day I was headed to Switzerland for the World Mountain champs I got word that I had (another) stress fracture of my sacrum. Needless to say I was quite uncomfortable traveling to and from the World’s. I was very pleased with how the team performed, but bummed that I couldn’t even walk the course with them. Our top girl, Alex Dunne, took the bronze medal which was our first individual junior medal. On the boys side we took fourth place with Tim Smith leading the way in 5th place. The men’s team also earned their first medal with a great showing to take the bronze. These were great accomplishments for teams that are not supported by USATF.

By mid-September I was finally given the okay to start running in the water. Petey even joined me a couple of times for a “run” in the mucky waters of Hart pond in Chelmsford. In early October I added some walking to my “training”. We headed to Hawaii for the Family Vacation. It was doubly tough as we were on the Island with the Iron-man race and there were people running, biking, and swimming at all hours of the day (Lucky Bastards!). I spent 2+ hours each day running in the water in the pool. It made for an unusual site as I’d complete a lap in the deep end in about a minute. That meant I’d do about 100 laps in the pool. I had a few people ask what I was doing and my favorite comment from one was “that doesn’t look like fun” to which I offhandedly replied “it isn’t”. I added biking to my repertoire at the end of the trip and slowly increased the biking as I phased out the water running. The temperature in Stiles pond was heading south of 60 degrees and I’m not very good with cold water. The only unfortunate side-effect of doing this was that I brought back some posterior tibial tendonitis. Heck, I thought it was impossible to get an injury while not running. Then again I have crashed a stationary bike so I suppose anything is possible (though not probable). The high point of the trip, literally, was ascending the state high point at 13,796. The exploding Doritos™ Bag experiment was hilarious, bought at sea-level and exploded at 9,000’.

Finally after 8 weeks of melancholy I was back to running in November. I celebrated being able to get out the door again with a great couple of hikes with Al. We went up by Baxter State Park and had perfect weather for bagging a couple of 3,000’ peaks. I truly enjoy the adventure of going somewhere I’ve never been before. Some of the views were great but ultimately that isn’t what I’m out there for. I got back on the town-bagging wagon with a trip to Nantucket in mid-November. It was a very quick trip that included a round trip on the “fast ferry”, biking 30 miles, running 6 miles, a fire tower, the county high point, and a lighthouse. I only throw the lighthouse in there for Cath and Rose who have this unhealthy obsession with visiting lighthouses. I can’t imagine what it is like to be obsessed with stuff like that J

I got back to racing, even though I wasn’t really in shape to race, with a windy and cold run around the lake in Wakefield. Double-J won the race and I survived with a fourth place finish narrowly missing my goal to break 18 minutes. I followed that with a good old fashioned ass-kicking (I was on the receiving end) at the Andover XC race. The race attracts nearly 400 and is quite a run, with a mix of grass, cart paths, quick up/downs, and tight turns. I battle throughout with the top woman but couldn’t quite get her at the finish line. Little did I know that as I kicked with all I had, the second place woman was also kicking like mad and finished only a few seconds back. I’m not sure who said it, but someone mentioned that time is irrelevant in XC. You just have to go after anyone who is in front of you and not let anyone pass you. Cross country is team running at its finest.

I went to Reno (the biggest little city – whatever the hell that means) for the USATF convention. I believe that it was my 12th convention since 1993. They really should organize a delegate’s race I think only two of the conventions I went to have had a race, too bad it is a missed opportunity. The highlight of the trip was getting a great run in with Richard Bolt the New Englander living in exile in Oregon. We did a great 11 mile run that climbed 2,100’ to the summit of Snow Valley Peak. The views were spectacular and it was my first county high point (on the continent) west of NY. I also bagged my highest solo peak, with a run up/down Mt Davidson at 7,864’ which nearly doubled my previous highest solo.

I finished out the cross country season with the always tough Assault on Mt Hood. I think the title should be changed to “I was assaulted by Mt Hood”. I felt beat up for a week after the race. This was the third time I’d raced it and every year the course has been different, usually due to the footing. Last year there was snow, this year we were post ice storm and unfortunately a fair amount of the race was on paved cart paths. It was still a great challenging course that was listed as 3.5 but was much closer to 3.8 miles. I took tenth place and fifth master, but kept Dan under a minute ahead of me. I believe I have raced Dan more times than anyone else. He is going to end up with about 55 races this year and I’ll have 40, even though I missed nearly three months. We ended up in the same race 16 times this year with Dan beating me 14 times. One of times I beat him was Gilmanton when he was so sick he shouldn’t have run and the other time was Mt Washington where he has only beaten me once in 13 times. Anyway, lifetime Dan and I have raced 208 times with me beating him 113 times and him beating me 95 times. In the last 5 years I’ve beaten Dan 6 times and he has beaten me 69 times. The pendulum has definitely swung in his direction. He has got to slow some time, doesn’t he?

2008 Highlights
3, 506 miles or an average of 9.6 miles per day.
41 races covering 191.5 miles or an average distance of 4.7 miles.
Nine snowshoe races ties my all-time most in a year.
7 wins gives me a streak of 30 consecutive years with at least one win.
60 days off including 54 in a row starting on Sept 1 due to a stress fracture.
103 Mountains climbed this year from 111’ Sankaty hill to 13,796’ Mauna Kea.
29 County High Points
125 Mass towns bagged and only 33 to go and I’ll have run in all 351 towns/cities in Massachusetts.

Lifetime totals:
104,110 miles or 9.48 miles per day for 30 years.
1,471 days off or 1 day off every 7.4 days.
1,037 races over a total of 6,333.3 miles (average of 6.11 miles per race).
349 wins = a 33.6% winning percentage
Total races by type:
474 road
117 XC
109 Mountain
103 Indoor track
102 Outdoor track
68 trail
62 snowshoe
2 triathlon