September 1984

September 1984 - 35 years ago: I had a bunch of issues this month with plantar fascia woes and a series of back spasms but managed 374 miles with no days off and one race during my junior XC season at U-Lowell. I kicked off the cross-country season at the Dartmouth invitational (Hanover NH). The Dartmouth duo of Jim Sapienza and Bob Kempainen were expected to go 1-2, but Kempainen must have had a bad day as I snuck in between the two and got one of the two silver bowls that were handed out. Luckily, they hadn’t engraved names on it prior to the race! Sapienza ran 28:46 for the 5.8 mile course and I finished 5 seconds behind him. It was a good start (at least for me) of the XC season. Kempainen would go on to make the USA Olympic team in 1992 & 1996 (marathon).