Granite
State Snowshoe championships – I’ve enjoyed doing this race over the last few
years, and especially like the new location at Bear Brook in Allenstown NH. I was not feeling great heading into
this. The National championships the
previous weekend took a lot of the wind out of my sails. Basically I was ready for snowshoe season to
end. I could not dog this race as I was
in a virtual tie with Ryan Welts for second place overall in the GSS
series.
I showed
up fairly early and met up with teammates Jim Pawlicki and Jim Johnson. While Jim was figuring out how to retrieve
his keys from inside his locked car I headed out on my warm-up. The schedule waits for no man. I checked out some of the course, running out
to nearly the top of Catamount hill and adding some more on the beginning of the
course. Knowing a little of the course
is always a good idea. I’ve snowshoed,
run, orienteered, and hiked in Bear Brook before so I had a good general feel
for where we were going. The course was
going to be tough, but the footing was cement hard which would make the going
relatively fast.
At the
start Rookie of the Year (ROTY) Nacho Hernando sprinted out. Double-J went off in pursuit and after ¼ mile
they were out of sight. Jim P gapped me
and Tim Van Orden right away and built up a 20 second lead by about 2 miles
in. TiVO stayed right on my heels and
Ryan was a step or two back. It took me
a while to get into a groove; I’m definitely in a post-big-race funk. We hit a wide trail around 2 miles in and it
had narrow ruts on both sides and a center lane where the snowmobiles had
ridden. I found the running to be best
in the rut but it was tough to not kick your own shoe (or ankle) while in
it. Jim seemed to have eased up on this
part and/or TiVO and I picked it up.
Either way the gap narrowed and by 3 miles or so (24 minutes in) we’d got
within a couple of strides of Jim.
It was
really hard to close those final few strides, Jim did not relent and I had TiVO
right behind me. At about 4 miles we hit
the first of the bigger climbs and I made a move by Jim. TiVO stayed behind Jim for a bit and I forged
a slight lead. Soon after that we
started the ascent of Catamount hill which would be out final uphill of the
day. We took a turn and I caught my
ankle in a pothole and twisted it badly (probably spooking the volunteers at the
turn as I cussed). I tried to push the
pace but could not drop TiVO who had gotten by Jim sometime during the
climb. I asked him if he wanted to pass
but he said he was all out. I held onto
the lead over the top of the hill but Tim went flying by on the descent. I was a bit worried about my ankle and maybe
breaking a leg in another pothole, I was also going about as fast as I
could.
Tim
ended up putting 15 seconds on me in the last ¾ of a mile and I ended up keeping
the 10+ second gap on Jim. Double-J took
the win running 48:28, taking Nacho by over 2 minutes then TiVO, me and Jim
Pawlicki with race director Ryan Welts taking 6th about a minute back. In all 80 runners took on this excellent
course on an ideal day for racing. Jim
Johnson won the overall series (he had already won prior to the race thanks to
the best 4 finishes format), I took second place and top 40-49. Ryan took third, but I imagine this will be
the last year that I beat him in the series.
Every year he gets a bit faster and I’ve been getting a bit slower. In 2015 I’ll focus on 50-59 age
group!
1
48:28 Jim Johnson M36
CMS
100.00
2 50:51 Nacho Hernando M20
Pies 95.31
3
52:58 Tim Van Orden M45
CMS
91.50
4
53:17 Dave Dunham M49
CMS
90.96
5
53:29 James Pawlicki M39
CMS
90.62
6 54:13 Ryan Welts M33
aR 89.39
7 56:48 Danny Ferreira M31
GCS 85.33
8 57:41 Phil Erwin M46 aR
84.02
9 58:45 Kenneth Wiley M31
aR 82.50
10 59:05
Marek Telus M38 aR
82.03
11 59:24
Chuck Hazzard M53 TM
81.59
12 1:00:18
Coby Jacobus M34 80.38
13 1:01:11
Chris Dunn M45 aR
79.22
14 1:01:20
Eric Narcisi M34 Level
79.02
15 1:01:52
Kristina Folcik F36 La Spor
78.34
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