Canterbury XC

I was looking forward to the Canterbury XC race (race #4 in the CARS) since XC tends to slow everyone down a bit.  I had finished in a surprising second place last year but knew that wasn’t going to be the case this year.  My goal was to give teammate Scott Clark a good race in the 50+.  Scott and I met up with our other teammates Darin Brown and Jim Johnson and headed out for a warm-up on the course.  I knew the layout from last year but wanted to see how much the rain over the last month had left the course muddy.  Not even a quarter mile in Darin bailed out at the really wet field, we plowed on without him.  That was the only wet part of the course and the grass was long so the going would be fairly slow.  After the warm-up I put on my Inov-8 trail shoes and tried to stay loose doing another easy mile.  My back felt crappy and I was sluggish.

Over 230 took off at the start and some went out crazy fast.  I had hoped for a strong start but found myself in 15^th place already a few steps behind Scott as we got onto the wet field.  I slowly reeled him in and moved up to 11^th place by ½ mile in.  I went by Scott but he stuck with me and on the downhill before the single-track he moved back into the front.  The lead pack was out of sight as I focused on Scott’s back on the twisty, rooty, single-track.  After the mile we popped out onto the dirt road and I moved up along Scott but couldn’t quite get by him.  We worked the tough hill from 1.5 to 1.8 miles and caught another guy.  I passed Scott on the hill and was now in 9^th place.  We bombed down the grassy hill and Scott went back by me when we hit the bottom.  We started to close on Kevin Crowley (GSRT) but I was only worried about Scott.  I tried to drop him on the next climb but he hung tough.  As we were reaching the crest at the cow barn Scott went and I could not match him.  It flattened out after that and I still thought I had a shot.  With 200 meters to go he found another gear that I did not have and he ended up 9^th with me taking 10^th 2 seconds later.

I can’t complain, it was a good race with neither of us giving much ground.  The next CARS race is part road and part XC which should be interesting.  Our team had a great day all of us were in the top 17 and we put 4 in the top 7 (including 1,2,3) in the age graded masters.  I’m currently leading the age graded series but it is a “best 5 of 8” so time will tell.

Canterbury 5k XC – May 11, 2019 234 finishers (28 M50+)

    1   1/3    MOPEN   17:32   17:32  5:39 Sandu Rebencivc     49 M Penacook NH       83.50%

    2   2/3    MOPEN   17:32   17:32  5:39 Jim Johnson            42M  Madison NH         79.31%

    3   3/3    MOPEN   17:38   17:38  5:41 Andrew Tuttle          23 M Alton NH             73.63%

    4   1/6    M2029   18:18   18:18  5:54 Louis Saviano III       28 M Sandown NH        70.97%

    5   2/6    M2029   18:30   18:28  5:57 David Martino            26 M Laconia NH          70.31%

    6   1/7    M1519   18:35   18:34  5:59 Colin Lessard             17 M Bow NH               70.48%

    7   2/7    M1519   18:52   18:49  6:04 Sam Berube             18 M Bow NH               69.03%

    8   1/17   M3039   19:10   19:09  6:10 Kevin Crowley          33 M Concord NH          68.61%

    9   1/28   M5059   19:12   19:11  6:11 Scott Clark               53 M Gilmanton NH       78.70%

   10   2/28   M5059   19:14   19:13  6:12 Dave Dunham         55 M Bradford MA         79.81%

   11   2/17   M3039   19:47   19:45  6:22 Kevin John               39 M York ME               68.92%

   12   3/28   M5059   20:33   20:32  6:37 Jim Angell               54 M Hopkinton NH       74.10%

   13   1/12   M0114   20:47   20:44  6:41 Saul Johnson           14 M York ME               66.04%

   14   1/21   M6069   20:52   20:49  6:42 Gregory Peters         61 M Laconia NH          77.34%

   15   2/21   M6069   21:05   21:02  6:47 Mike Barry               62 M Northwood NH      77.19%

   16   3/7    M1519   21:13   21:11  6:49 Gabriel Neff              17 M Bow NH                61.77%

   17   4/28   M5059   21:27   21:25  6:54 Darin Brown            52 M Madison NH           69.95%

   18   4/7    M1519   21:44   21:42  6:59 Silas Frary                19 M Concord NH           59.83%

   19   3/17   M3039   22:02   21:59  7:05 Matt Deschuytner    32 M Canterbury NH       59.55%

   20   3/6    M2029   22:25   22:10  7:09 Garrison Hiltz            20 M Ashland NH            58.57%

CARS TEAM SCORING FOR THE CANXC RACE

  1. 237.68  TOTALLY BAD ASS                     (79.23)

  1   79.74  Dave Dunham           M 55

  2   79.31  Jim Johnson              M 42

  3   78.63  Scott Clark                M 53

  4  (69.84) Darin Brown             M 52

  2. 211.25  BREAKAWAY LRTC                      (70.42)

  3. 209.13  MUGWUMPS                               (69.71)

  4. 202.08  GRANITE STATE RACING TEAM    (67.36)

  5. 200.95  TAPE BREAKERS                         (66.98)

  6. 187.52  THE RUNAWAYS                         (62.51)

  7. 175.57  RUNNER'S ALLEY                        (58.52)

  8. 174.23  WOODCHUCK                             (58.08)

  9. 158.91  SWEETIE PIES                            (52.97)

10. 141.43  LOST IN PACE                            (47.14)

11. 139.76  TEAM JJAM                                 (46.59)

12. 128.65  GREATER DERRY TRACK CLUB      (42.88)