20 Years ago = Sept. 1993 - I “raced’ five times during this month but the final race was just an easy jog at the CMS series race.  I started the month with one of the biggest races I’ve ever done, not largest but most important.  I went to Gap France to represent the US in the World Mountain running championships.  The multi-loop up/down course was very much the type of course I like.  The climbs were brutal and the downhill parts were long with great footing.  There was a lot of back and forth and it was really hard to tell what place you were in.  I thought the lead pack was out of sight ahead of the couple of guys I was with.  Just before the end of the final climb I moved ahead of the other two (and would later find out I was leading the race!).  We bombed down the final drop and I got passed with about 1 km to go.  I crossed the line a few seconds back and asked what place and was floored when I found out I’d finished in 2^nd place.

 

On the medal stand

 

A week later I hit the trails of Southern NH for the Wapack 17.5 mile trail race.  I ran through the turn-around with Tom Buckley then made my move pulling away for the win in 2:26:11.  Six days after that I ran the 10.7 mile leg of the Lake W (Fred Brown) relay for Team CMS.  I ran the fastest time of the day (55:21) and CMS won.  A week later it was off to Manchester NH for the New England 5k championships.  It was rainy and 50’s, a lot of us did our warm-up by running up and down the parking garage.  The course was fast although it had a lot of turns which weren’t’ that easy to navigate in the rain.  I ended up finishing in 2^nd place with teammate Eric Morse outkicking me by one second 14:29 to 14:30.  A couple of days later I closed the month with a visit to Worcester for the CMS series.  I took it easy and finished in 7^th place in 19:07.  I was working towards getting a series sweatshirt if I got 26 of the 52 races.

 

 

At the Fred Brown Relay