Sunday, March 27, 2011

March 2001

10 years ago
I was preparing to take a shot at the American record for 50km so I was doing a lot of long runs and “strength” races in 2001.  I raced four times during the month and got two wins.  The wins were on back to back days, with a snowshoe victory at Moody Springs over the killer 8.6 mile version (1:17:30) and a win at Stu’s 30k.  I think Kevin Beck gave me the win in this one, I know we ran almost the entire race together.  My time over the hilly course was 1:48:34 and three weeks later I’d run nearly as fast over 20 miles. 

A week later I took 9th place in 1:09:58 at the USATF NE half-marathon in Melrose.  In a rare race day lapse I forgot to bring racing flats.  Lou Ristaino somehow mustered up a pair for me he would do the same a few years later when I brought two left shoes to the Trav’s trail race (that time I wore a pair of shoes that were 1.5 sizes too big). 

I closed out the month with a second place finish at the Eastern States 20 mile.  My goal was 5:40 pace, to mimic what I hoped to do at the 50km and I hit it a bit faster than I wanted with a 1:49:58.  Beck was stalking me again running 100m behind me for basically the entire 20 miles.

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