Winners Circle cross-country race – I’ve raced a lot on
Thanksgiving and the one race I’ve done the most is the WCRC XC race. The venue
changed a few years ago but the event itself is unchanged. This year the start
was postponed by ½ hour due to the overnight snow storm. There was anywhere
from 3 to 5 inches of snow on the ground at Pipestave hill. The course is
almost all in open fields so there were very few spots where there wasn’t deep
heavy wet snow with a crust to punch through.
I showed up extra early figuring I’d need additional time to
run the course. I got my number and put on Kahtoolah traction devices and
headed out. The course was well marked and was easy to follow especially since
there was only one set of footprints out there, from the guy who flagged the
course. The running was a slog. I ended up covering the course in 28 minutes
(a little over 9 minute pace). The Kahtoolah’s didn’t really help they just got
clogged up with icy clumps of snow. I switched into Inov-8 racing flats and did
another half-mile with a couple of strides. My guess was that I could run right
around 7 minute pace. This was not going to be easy.
Teammate Greg Putnam and I lined up in the middle of the
soccer field along with 300 folks. Greg won the race last year and was looking
for another win but more importantly did not want to get hurt. My goal was also
to not take a spill or something like that and pull a muscle. The mad dash
sprint was pretty wild, almost like a snowshoe race with the snow flying. I
stayed on my feet and found myself just outside of the top 10 as we turned at
the first cone 100 meters into the race. One hundred meters later I was in
sixth and by 400 meters I was in fourth place.
Greg was out front breaking trail and two other guys were
trying to stay close to him. I was already 10 seconds down as we hit the first
hill. The long downhill into the mile was fun, probably the nicest running of
the day. Then I ran into trouble. A lady with five dogs did not have them
under control. One dog shot off with Greg (and ran with him for another mile),
one pounced me and bit me! I yelled at the lady to get her f-ing dogs under
control and powered on full of adrenaline. Greg was twenty seconds up as I hit
the mile in 6:41 with the two guys about 10 seconds ahead of me running
together.
The climb up Pipestave hill was tough, but I felt that the
two guys in front of me were “coming back” so I worked it as hard as I could.
Greg was now out of sight but the other two were 15 seconds ahead. After two
miles (a 6:50 split) I caught sight of Greg on the climb back up through the
equestrian field. Chris Ritchie (Coastal) had pulled away from Sam Coppola (a
junior running at Pentucket) who was struggling on the climb. At the top we hit
a section that we’d run on previously and the 300 pair of feet had packed it
down. It felt weird to suddenly be able to accelerate. I went by Coppola and
kept pushing. I was worried about him coming back and kicking by me in the last
quarter mile. That kept me rolling, with 200 to go I heard them announce Greg
winning the race as I looped around the paddock into the finish.
Greg was happy with his win and I was pleased with my time
(breaking 7’s). We quickly grabbed a t-shirt and headed back out on the now
packed down course. We caught up to Mom Dunham on that final uphill which was
slick from the packed down snow. Mom took the 70+ division and I was top in the
50+ (although they took me out of the age groups for finishing in the top
three). No spills but now I have to watch out for rabies symptoms!
Pl Time Name Sx
Age Cat Cat Pl City, St
1 20:22.4 Gregory Putnam M 45
TOP3 1/3 Stoneham MA2 20:46.1 Chris Ritchie M 31 TOP3 2/3 Hampton NH
3 21:08.7 Dave Dunham M 50 TOP3 3/3 Ward Hill MA
4 21:38.7 Sam Coppola M 16 M1317 1/11 Groveland MA
5 22:40.4 Keith Leblanc M 36 M3039 1/37 Amesbury MA
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