Sunday, December 29, 2013

Looking back - 10 & 5 years ago

10 years ago: December 2003
Two races during the month as I was coming back from some injury or another.  I started off the month with the Santa’s toy run in Merrimac MA.  This is one of the better races put on by the Winners Circle .  It features a 2 mile loop that you do one, two, or three times.  You do not have to declare which race you are doing, you just stop at the appropriate time.  I went with the 6 mile version taking first place in 34:44.

Two weeks later I kicked off the snowshoe racing season with the “I love Woodford” snowshoe race.  I found myself around the top 10 early on and the pack pulled away leaving me running alone.  At about half-way there is a sharp turn, which I knew from having run the course a number of times.  I took the turn and immediately noticed that there were no footprints ahead of me!  There was no one in sight so I just headed on my way and ended up taking first place.  The lead pack rolled in about 20 minutes after I finished.  Ouch!

The top 5
1 Dave     Dunham   39 M        27:34
2 Tom      Parent     27 M        32:08
3 Wayne  Stocker    49 M        32:10
4 Tom      Denny      43 M        32:17
5 Chris     Lanaud    36 M        32:19
                               
The “lost” (blue = CMS)
47 Richard Bolt        33 M        46:05
48 Ben Nephew       27 M        46:06
50 Elijah Barrett      27 M        46:18
52 Greg Hammett    26 M        46:24
53 James Pawlicki    29 M        46:26
55 Ken Clark            41 M        46:33
56 Dan Verrington   41 M   46:38                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      



5 years ago: December 2008
I tried to get out and race a bit more during this month, getting in four “races”.  I started with the Assault on Mt Hood XC race in Melrose .  I like this race, I’ve done it a few times and it seems like every time they have a new challenging course.  It was a bit icy out there but I managed to keep my legs under me and take 10th place in 22:33 over 3.5 (or so) miles.
1 Ryan Gattoni        20:46.9   23M        
2 Joe Shairs             20:51.4   40M         CMS
3 Ben Strain             21:02.3   30M         CMS
4 Henry Scoward     21:07.2   45M         CRC
5 Terry McNatt        21:21.3   43M        
6 Dan Verrington     21:35.8   46M         CMS
7 James Pawlicki      22:06.9   34M         CMS
8 Dave Hannon       22:10.3   37M         NETT
9 Chris Van Cott      22:27.9   28M        
10 Dave Dunham     22:33.1   44M         CMS

 A week later I ran in the very popular BU Mini meet.  I ended up in the second of three heats of the 3,000 meters.  I would have been better off in the third heat as I ran mostly alone and took 16th out of 17 finishers running a 10:01 (about 10:40 for 2 miles).  Since we had some snow and I was getting ready for snowshoe racing season, I decided to set up a 5k race at Winnekenni.  My guess was that no one else would show up because it was Christmas morning.  I figured out a 3.5 mile loop and did my warm-up setting out flags for the race course.  No one showed up so I went out and ran the loop as fast as I could (26:39).  For a warm-down I went back out and cleared the course of flags.  It was a fun way to get in 11+ miles and winning a “race”.  Three days later I closed out the month with the “I love Woodford” snowshoe race.  I had a pretty decent run finishing in fourth, barely holding off late surges from teammates Tim Mahoney and Jim Pawlicki.

1 Josh Ferenc M27 23:44 
2 Jim Johnson M31 24:32 
3 Mathew Cartier M33 24:50 
4 Dave Dunham M44  25:15 
5 Tim Mahoney M29 25:22 
6 James Pawlicki M34 25:30 
7 Mathew Westerlund M36 26:10 
8 Jay Kolodzinski M29 27:40 
9 Steve Wolfe M44 27:48 
10 Ken Clark M46 28:01 
11 Abby Woods F30 28:08

3 comments:

DoubleJ said...

that was my first SS race ever and my 2nd snowshoe RUN ever...

DoubleJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Greg said...

Woodford 10 years ago was my first snowshoe race. Even though we got lost, I was hooked. Cool memories!