September 1989

September 1989 - 30 years ago: I covered 378 miles and raced four times during this month. I started the month at the New Haven 20k, it wasn’t the U.S. championships that year, but it was still a pretty stacked field (back then the field was 2,000 strong…now more like 7,000). I ran 3 mile splits of 14:36/14:52/15:28/15:08 to record a 1:02:08 or just a couple of ticks under 5-minute-mile pace. I was well out of the money taking 9th place. Top 4: Reifsnyder 59:20, Rex Wilson 59:30, Andy Ronan 59:35, Derek Froude 60:44. A week later I raced out in Amherst MA at the Collegetown 8k which was the USATF (then NEAC) New England championships. It was 95 and very muggy, the course was flat and fast but fast times were not run on this day. Mark Donahue did run a solid 24:12, Zimmerly (24:57) and I were the only other guys under 25 (24:54). It was ugly. The following week I shifted gears to XC and got a win at the Dartmouth invitational. I was 34 slower seconds than I’d run five years before, but it was fast enough to hold off GLRR teammate Bob Hodge (29:25 to 29:30). The following week saw 600 gather in Wilton NH for the NEAC 15km championships. Canadian Norm Tinkham won over the hilly course in 45:44. I took fourth in 46:21 (a personal best at the time). Paul Gompers and Hodge had a good battle running 46:03 and 46:08 respectively. In a bit of a shocker our GLRR open team beat the CMS boys by 7 minutes (4:04 to 4:11).