Sunday, April 17, 2022

Looking back - 1997 & 2002

 25 years ago (April 1997) – I only raced once this month as injury loomed.  Despite feeling “dizzy, sick, lousy” I managed to knock 3 seconds off of Stan Bickford’s course record at the Presidential 5m race with a 24:46.  Teammate Byrne Decker took second place 27 seconds back.

1 24:46 Dave Dunham 

2 25:13 Byrne Decker

3 26:30 David Weatherbie

 

20 years ago (April 2002) – I only ran two races this month as I was bouncing back from the 50km national champs in late March.  On 04/07/02 I took on the Presidential 5m and ran a slow 26:41 to take 8th.  Andy Spaulding won in 25-flat and Dan Verrington took 3rd in 25:23.  Two weeks later I went to Carmel NY to see if I could sneak out a win at the Sybil Luddington 50km. Bob Sweeney took it out on the rolling course (2,600’ of climb/drop) and I found myself 10-15 seconds back.  I was hoping to run around 6:30 pace (3:22 for 50km) but that was before I saw how tough the course was.  At 13 miles Bob took a nature break and I found myself in the lead.  Bob motored back by and from 15-20 miles he increased his lead to about 20 seconds. I hit the marathon in 2:50:47 with Bob 40 seconds up. He picked it up over the final 8km to set a new CR in 3:18:49.  I took 2nd in 3:2150 and 3rd place came in nearly a half-hour later.

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