Thursday, July 28, 2016

Lynn Woods XC

It has been four years since I last raced at Lynn Woods.  Last night was my 10th time doing either a weekly series race or the relay at Lynn.  They always do a nice job, but I have trouble getting excited to do a race in the summer heat and especially struggle with racing late at night (6:30 pm is basically bedtime for me).  I really needed to get some leg turnover as most of my racing over the last 2 months has been Mountain running.  The Mountain races can make you stronger but they also tend to make you slower.  With the USATF NE road 5 mile only a few weeks away I really needed to get some of the rust off of me.

 

I showed up a bit early and got my number and hydrated a bit (85 degrees in the shade seemed relatively cool).  There were a lot of familiar faces around but most everyone I knew would be doing the longer of the two races (6 miles & 2.3 were the offerings).  I did my warm-up checking out the 2.3 course and was surprised at how tough it was.  The climbing was no surprise, but the rough footing on the ¾ mile of single-track was something I wasn’t expecting.  They call it a “Cross Country” race but this version may have been better described as a trail race.  The single track would be tough with twists/turns and a lot of rocks/roots.  My goal was to survive that part then hopefully push the 195’ climb from Dungeon road to the Stone Tower.  After the tower the last ½ mile to the finish had 130’ of drop which would shake things out (but hopefully nothing would fall off).

 

I switched into race flats then heard the announcement that the short race would start 10 minutes after the long race (last time I did the race they went together but they wanted to avoid congestion on the single-track).  That gave me a little more time so I headed out for another 1.7 miles with a few strides thrown in.  I felt lousy.

 

After some instructions we were sent on our way.  I took the lead right away and could hear footsteps right behind me as we covered the first half mile (3:31).  It was mostly uphill climbing 100’, the first 400 was on the woods road then we hit the single track.  The guys behind me stayed right on me during the single-track, I considered offering to move over but they weren’t right on me so I held my lead.  The second ½ mile had 80’ of drop but you couldn’t take much advantage as the footing was pretty lousy, we then had a 40’ climb before the final 20’ of drop at the mile mark (3:44 = 7:15 mile).

 

We hit Dungeon road and two kids from Marblehead blew by, along with fellow “senior” runner Jason Barnes.  The lead guy (Oliver Jacob = 4:38 mile & :55 quarter) looked good, his teammate (Ian Strothers = 10:35 2 mile) sounded a bit ragged and he fell off during the .3 that climbed 115’.  I was a few seconds behind Barnes but close back on him as we dropped 20’ by the 1.5 mile mark (3:26).  The next .2 was pretty steep (80’ = 7.5% grade) and I got back up to Barnes and was just a few seconds behind Jacob.

 

After passing the Stone Tower and hitting the 130’ drop I pulled ahead of Barnes but didn’t close on Jacob (3:15 for ½ mile).  With about 200 meters to go he really accelerated and actually took a couple of steps beyond the final left hand turn.  I yelled for him to “go left” and he reversed direction and got back up to speed hitting the line 9 seconds ahead of me.

 

I was happy with the effort although the pace was “slow”, it was a shock to my system for sure!  I’ll have to hit the trail or roads at least one more time before the 5 mile.

 

Lynn Woods Summer Cross Country

Lynn, MA July  27,2016 6:40 PM

2.3 Cornell to Stone Tower Trail Master: Jeff Laine & Greg Esbitt       138 Finishers

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   Pl      Name                S Ag     City, St                         Time    Pace 

    1 Oliver Jacob                        M 17 Marblehead, MA      15:12  6:37

    2 Dave Dunham          M 52 Bradford, MA           15:21  6:41

    3 Jason Barnes                       M 53 Salem, MA              15:27  6:43

    4 Ian Strothers           M 16 Marblehead, MA      15:32  6:45

    5 Tony Mwangi           M 17 Lynn, MA                17:20  7:32

    6 Brandon Mendez      M 17 Lynn, MA                18:04  7:51

    7 Brittani Atkinson       F 23 Peabody, MA                       19:09  8:20

    8 Kyle Saulnier           M 15 Marblehead, MA      19:13  8:22

    9 Lai-Sahn Hackett      F 24 Peabody, MA                       19:15  8:22

   10 Eric Bowden            M 47 Lynn, MA                19:48  8:37

 

 

My history at Lynn Woods

 

Weekly Series

Date      Dist      Time     Pl          40+ Pl   Finishers Notes              

07/16/92 2.50    12:15    1                      35         Short race, Cremin 12:20, Toomey 12:48,  Doherty 12:50

07/26/06 2.50    14:54    2          1          35         Short race, 1 Bernier 14:40

06/11/08 5.50    34:24    2          2          58         Long race, 1 Quintal, 3 Pawlicki (we ran together)

07/16/08 2.50    14:12    1          1          50         Short Race, Steel Tower version

                                                                                   

Relay 4x 2.5 miles

Date      Time    Leg Pl    40+ Pl   Finishers            Notes

08/21/91 12:05  1                      180       Team record 50:10 and relay leg record. Doherty 12:32, White 13:01, Chamberas 12:33

08/24/05 14:13  24         3          280       2nd place 40+ team (10 seconds out) – Lynx team

08/20/08 14:03  14         3          287       40+ Team record 55:12.  Shairs 13:18, Quintal 14:04, Verrington 13:47

08/24/11 14:05  7          3          328       2nd 40+ Team 57:02 = Shairs 14:12, Quintal 14:15, Verrington 14:30

08/22/12 14:24  12         2          376       1st 40+ Team 57:42 = Putnam 13:41,  Shairs 14:27, Verrington 15:10

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