Looking back - March 2007

15 years ago (March 2007) – I raced 6 times over this month, mixing it up with snowshoe, XC and road racing. Mostly I was just trying to get back into it after being injured.  I had spent the previous two months slowly building up my mileage.  I started the month with a double snowshoe race weekend, the racing wasn’t too bad but the two very long drives (Hawley & North Adams) made for a lot of time behind the wheel.  I took 2nd at Hawley Kiln with Dmitry Drozdov burying me in the final ½ mile to beat me by 13 seconds.  The next day I was tired and sore (shocking!) but managed to hold off Al Bernier over the 3.5 mile Greylock Glen course in the shadows of Mt Greylock.  Al and I then hiked to Saddle Ball mountain and the summit of Greylock before a fun bomb down the Thunderbolt trail in perfect conditions.  It was a blast as Al shouted out our altitude as we plummeted down in deep powder.  The following weekend (03/11/07) I directed the Northfield Mountain snowshoe race which featured an out/back course the went from the base to the viewing platform and back down.  All of the 3.9 miles (with 850’ of climb/descent) was on narrow singletrack trail.  Paul Low won easily in 32:40 and I took a surprising 2nd place in 35:14.  The next weekend  (03/18/07) I hit my first 70 mile week of the year and hit the roads for a 5k (Peabody Hibernian race).  I got into the lead just before the 2 mile mark and was able to hang on for a 15 second win in 17:44.The next weekend (03/25/07) Dan Verrington and I headed to Salem for the Olde Salem Green 5k cross country race.  It had snowed on Saturday and 2-3” made the golf course quite slick.  Dan took the win in 18:58 and I took second in 19:23.  I closed out the month at the Capital Area Race Series (CARS) kick-off at Gilmanton NH 5k.  This was also my first 80 mile week as I continued to make gains.  I took it out hard but was not in the top 10 at the 1km mark.  I lost 3 places on the climb from 3-4km but managed to move back up taking 10th in 17:38.

 

1 15:50                Miller    

2 16:17                Kilpatrick

3 16:29                 Kevin Tilton

4 16:37                Eric Morse

5 17:15                Dan Verrington

10 17:38              Dave Dunham