Thursday, February 4, 2010

Best snowshoe field in New England

During the warm-up at Sidehiller double-j mentioned that he thought there was a great field assembled, maybe the best in New England. My first reaction was to think “Jim is sandbagging”, my next thought was that he was just hyping the race. After finishing and looking at the results, I’ve got to admit it was a very strong field. “Best field” or “great field” is a very subjective term. I think the deepest field (and as such the best) was when the Nationals were held at Bolton Valley VT back in 2006. I like to use % behind the winner, this gives an indication of how close the race was. Of course, this doesn’t take into account conditions (such as deep snow) where people tend to group up. There was a North Pond race a couple of years ago where basically the entire field ran together until the final 100m. I haven’t included that race. Here are what I think are the most competitive snowshoe races ever held in New England.

#1 the 2006 National championship at Bolton Valley. This field had incredible depth, 11 guys finished within 10% of the winner and an incredible 44 finished within 20%. The top 10 was, in my opinion, the best top 10 to ever finish in New England. Paul Low and Richard Bolt were at the top of there game, tearing up the WMAC series in 2006 with Bolt winning three races and Low winning three (his only loss was to Bolt at Northfield mountain).

#2 Sidehiller 2010. The top 11 all finished within 10% of the winner. Very few of the top snowshoe racers in NE were missing from this race. The top 27 finished within 20% of the winner. Kevin Tilton, Josh Ferenc, and Jim Johnson had already combined for over 10 wins in the WMAC and Granite state series and it was only the end of January! The three finished within 17 seconds on this lightening fast course.

#3 Northfield Mountain (national qualifier) 2005. The top 10 were all within 10% of the winner and 19 finished within 20%. The top five had been (or currently were) members of the US mountain running team. Paul Low and Richard Bolt again battled as they did all year. The two combined to win 7 WMAC races and had some epic battle with Bolt beat Low four times and Low beating Bolt three times.

#4 Bolton Valley qualifier in 2006. Not many of the top NE guys were missing at this qualifier. Tilton, Bolt, Nephew, Barrett took the top 4 U.S. spots. The top five were all within 10% of the winner and the top 18 finished within 20%.

#5 – Chime in! Tell me what race I missed…

2006 National championship
1
GregHexum
42:42:00
MN
100.00%
2
PaulLow
43:11:00
MA
98.88%
3
BillRaitter
43:52:00
CO
97.34%
4
RichBolt
44:13:00
NH
96.57%
5
MarkChurchill
45:09:00
VT
94.57%
6
ScottGall
45:38:00
IA
93.57%
7
BernieBoettcher
46:04:00
CO
92.69%
8
AntonioHolguin
46:21:00
MEX
92.13%
9
ChristianVachon
46:28:00
CAN
91.89%
10
MikeDecker
46:36:00
MI
91.63%
11
KevinTilton
46:53:00
NH
91.08%
12
JimmyGobeil
47:05:00
CAN
90.69%
13
GregoryHammett
47:37:00
NH
89.67%
14
CoryBrown
47:46:00
NY
89.39%
15
ThomasBeckum
47:52:00
ME
89.21%
16
BenNephew
48:08:00
MA
88.71%
17
JesseHaynes
48:11:00
CA
88.62%
18
AlanEvans
48:19:00
NY
88.38%
19
AaronRobertson
48:22:00
NY
88.28%
20
DeweyPeacock
48:33:00
MT
87.95%
21
MartinLadouceur
48:45:00
CAN
87.59%
22
GaryFancher
49:12:00
NY
86.79%
23
DanVerrington
49:34:00
MA
86.15%
24
DavidSchuneman
49:50:00
MN
85.69%
25
JamesPawlicki
49:52:00
MA
85.63%
26
DavidDunham
50:04:00
MA
85.29%
27
Jean-NicolasDuval
50:17:00
CAN
84.92%
28
PeterMaksimow
50:48:00
MA
84.06%
29
AllenMead
50:58:00
VT
83.78%
30
StevePeterson
51:09:00
MA
83.48%
31
ChadDenning
51:21:00
NH
83.15%
32
J.F.Lindsay
51:31:00
CAN
82.89%
33
StefanBibb
51:39:00
VT
82.67%
34
TyStrange
51:40:00
CA
82.65%
35
JasonUrckfitz
52:04:00
NY
82.01%
36
NateHuckle
52:08:00
NY
81.91%
37
CarlJohnston
52:18:00
NY
81.64%
38
JohnDaly
52:27:00
VT
81.41%
39
NathanielGrabman
52:36:00
AK
81.18%
40
RobSmith
52:38:00
MA
81.13%
41
KaseySchmitt
52:59:00
IA
80.59%
42
KasieEnman
53:07:00
VT
80.39%
43
BobNugent
53:09:00
NY
80.34%
44
JamieBoese
53:20:00
CO
80.06%

2010 Sandwich
1KevinTilton0:31:08100.00%NH
2JoshFerenc0:31:2099.36%NH
3JimJohnson0:31:2599.10%NH
4PeterMallett0:31:4797.95%NH
5CharlesTherriault0:32:1296.69%NH
6BenNephew0:32:3295.70%MA
7BobJackman0:33:2593.17%RI
8TimCox0:33:4492.29%NH
9DannyFerriera0:34:0191.52%NH
10DaveDunham0:34:0491.39%MA
11SteveWolfe0:34:0591.34%NH
12EricMorse0:34:4489.64%VT
13JimPawlicki0:34:5189.34%MA
14DavidPrincipe0:35:0388.83%RI
15StanSnow0:35:0588.74%VT
16DaveQuintal0:35:3387.58%NH
17JohnPajer0:36:0586.28%MA
18ReederFahnestock0:36:1585.89%NH
19ChrisDunn0:36:3585.10%NH
20KurtGustafson0:36:4784.64%MA
21RichardLavers0:36:5584.33%NH
22JeremiahFitzgibbon0:37:5182.25%NH
23SamWallis0:37:5282.22%MA
24KenPoulin0:37:5382.18%MA
25EddieHabeck0:38:2081.22%VT
26RyanWelts0:38:3980.55%NH
27Amber Cullen0:38:3980.55%

2005 Northfield

1
Paul Low100.00%
2
Richard Bolt98.91%
3
PeterMaksimow97.83%
4
Ben Nephew96.74%
5
Dan Verrington95.65%
6
GregoryHammett94.57%
7
Stephen Judice93.48%
8
Leigh Schmitt92.39%
9
ElijahBarrett91.30%
10
MikeCohen90.22%
11
MarkChurchill89.13%
12
JamesPawlicki88.04%
13
Greg Ward86.96%
14
JasonAyr85.87%
15
RobMunro84.78%
16
Stephen Peterson83.70%
17
JohnDaly82.61%
18
Kelli Lusk81.52%
19
Peter Keeney80.43%
20
Judson Cake79.35%

2006 Bolton qualifier

1
Jimmey Gobeil CANADA
0:47:49
100.00%
2
Kevin TiltonNH-USA
0:47:59
99.65%
3
Richard BoltNH-USA
0:49:28
96.66%
4
Ben NephewMA-USA
0:51:46
92.37%
5
Elijah BarrettNH-USA
0:52:50
90.50%
6
Joel St-LouisCANADA
0:53:11
89.91%
7
Christian VachonCANADA
0:53:16
89.77%
8
J.F. LindsayCANADA
0:53:31
89.35%
9
Don VerringtonMA-USA
0:55:00
86.94%
10
Dave DunhamMA-USA
0:55:57
85.46%
11
Greg HammetMA-USA
0:56:23
84.81%
12
George AdamsUSA
0:56:30
84.63%
13
Thomas BeckumME-USA
0:56:57
83.96%
14
James PawlickiMA-USA
0:58:11
82.18%
15
Allen MeadVT-USA
0:58:27
81.81%
16
Adams RobertsonNY-USA
0:59:12
80.77%
17
John ConillardMA-USA
0:59:15
80.70%
18
Jad DaleyVT-USA
0:59:16
80.68%
19
Peter DafaultUSA
1:01:32
77.71%
20
Jean-Nicolas DuvalCANADA
1:02:37
76.36%
21
Ross SaxtenUSA
1:02:46
76.18%
22
Todd PetersonUSA
1:03:17
75.56%
23
Matt MarawskiUSA
1:08:44
69.57%
24
Pete MalinowskiMA-USA
1:08:57
69.35%
25
John DotyVT-USA
1:09:24
68.90%

4 comments:

Kevin said...

I'd say the Bolton course was one of the best all-around snowshoe course ever. Fast grooomed trails, windy singletrack, long grinding hills and deep powder.

pLow said...

Bolton Nationals has to be tops but second in my books goes to Northfield 2004. The top-20 had two former or future national champions (Dunham and Robertson), seven former or future national mountain guys (including Petey), some of New England's best trail runners, and Rick Bolt on fire. In terms of competitive SS races that I have run, this ranks only behind 3 nationals and North Americans.

Richard Bolt
Paul Low
Ethan Hemphill
Junior Pullins
Leigh Schmitt
Ben Nephew
Ian Lanza
Gregory Hammett
Aaron Robertson
Matt Cartier
Elijah Barrett
Dan Verrington
Ryan Pauling
James Pawlicki
Kevin Tilton
Dave Dunham
Steve Peterson
Gregory Ward
David Loutzenheiser
Jim Schultz

double-d Mountain runner said...

2004 was a very strong field, I think I didn't include it because of the drop-off to the top 20 spot. It really was a "who's who" of snowshoe at the time.

Anonymous said...

Not sure how to take your comment, Paul, regarding 2004 Northfield.

....seven former or future national mountain guys (including Petey), ...

I'll take it as a compliment!

I thought 2006 Nationals was such an awesome course. I remember trying to pass on the single track and almost taking out a tree (or taking out myself). Fun!!

Which Northfield was it where there was a whole train of runners and Ben let some people go and then never was reciprocated when he asked to pass. Only at Northfield's climb!! I love Norhtfield and was so bummed to miss today's!

Petey