Wachusett Mountain

Talk about switching gears!  Next up was the Wachusett Mountain race.  I had not done a mountain race since the 2019 Mt Washington road race (and I wasn’t really missing it).  Wachusett is one of my favorite races even though the climb isn’t quite steep enough for me, and I’m not a big fan of the downhill.  I figured this would be a good place to test where I’m at and see how I can do in the downhill since the World Championships will have some descent.  This would be my 24th time racing up Wachusett over a variety of courses.  The most current version is a 2.85 mile climb to the summit where you can stop, or you can get a “two-fer” and continue on down the road and trail for a 10km with over 1,100’ of climb and drop.  I was happy to see Kevin Tilton and we got in a 3 mile warm-up while checking out the Balance Rock road (dirt) section of the course. I was also happy to see so many of my “mountain friends” who I had not seen in some time.  It was good to be back!
  

Conditions were pretty good with temps in the 60’s with high humidity and every once in a while a sprinkle of rain.  I bumped into Rick Rudman’s “kid” on the way to the start and he mentioned how he met me about 30 years ago.  Boy, that made me feel old!  Over 300 lined up on the appropriately named “Mile Hill Road”.  The first mile climbed about 400’ on that road before turning into the park.
  

I felt like I got out well and settled into what felt like a good pace.  I counted 15 guys ahead of me when my watch beeped at ½ mile.  I slowly started reeling guys in and by the mile had moved up to 12th place as we turned into the park and the ½ mile or so of downhill.  I lost a spot on the downhill and then found my groove as the tougher steady climbing began.  By 1.5 I’d moved into the top 10 and had my sights set on catching up to Kevin.  By 2 miles I was into 8th place with Kevin and a Western Mass guy (Vandermolen) a little ahead.  I got them with about ½ mile of climbing to go and Kevin and I got a couple of steps on Vandermolen then he stopped at the aid station (he didn’t know we were almost at the top finish).  Kevin and I had a couple of back and forth moves and then went slightly off course (directed to “go up by the rocks”) but only lost a few seconds from that.  Kevin made a final dash for the line and got me by 1 second.
 
1 20:12.5             Stephen Kerr                     M30
2 20:26.8             Brian Amaral                     M28
3 21:03.6             Jacob Wormald                 M26
4 21:38.3             Andrew Greene                M37
5 21:48.4             Steve Brightman               M53
6 22:14.4             Kevin Tilton                       M40
7 22:15.4             Dave Dunham                   M58
8 22:19.8             Scott Vandermolen          M33
9 22:30.9             Bryce Spare                       M38
10 22:39.2           Michael Narcisi                 M38
 
I was hurting as I headed around the viewing platform and started the descent.  Vandermolen went flying by me about ½ mile later.  I kept him in sight and with less than a mile to go Paulo Amaral (who ran the fastest downhill time of the day) flew by just as I caught Andrew Greene.  That’d be the final passing as I hit the finish in 6th place.  No complaints as I took 10 seconds off my ascent time from 2019 and 25 seconds off of my 10k time from 2019.
 
1 38:50.6             Brian Amaral                     M28
2 39:26.4             Jacob Wormald                 M26
3 40:13.3             Steve Brightman               M53
4 40:59.9             Paulo Amaral                    M41
5 41:05.6             Scott Vandermolen          M33
6 41:30.6             Dave Dunham                   M58
7 41:39.1             Andrew Greene                M37
8 41:44.8             Mike Guarascio                M38
9 41:45.9             Charles Oestreich             M25
10 41:50.3           Logan Foster                     M25