Prospect Mountain snowshoe race

After I cancelled the Northfield race, all of the forecasts suddenly changed and the Blizzard headed our way.  Go figure.  Then teammate Tim Van Orden stepped up and got together a race at Prospect Mountain (Woodford, VT).  I had planned on going on Saturday afternoon and helping TiVO with course marking but the driving ban wasn’t lifted until 4 PM which was too late to be useful.

 

I drove out early and gave myself extra time in case the roads were a mess.  There were no issues and TiVO arrived just after I pulled into the parking lot.  We gathered some flagging and headed out to finish marking (Tim had spent some hours the day before doing a large amount of the course).  It was 9 below zero when we started but didn’t seem so bad once we got going.  It was fun to have some time to chat while checking things out.  The course was terrific, a great mix of groomed wide trail and powdery single-track.  There was a ton of snow and we also had a good combination of climbing and breaks (over 800’ of climb).  After 1:28 we were back at the finish line with time in hand before the race.

 

I changed into dry gear and headed out for an easy mile on the road, then put on my snowshoes and did another mile on the course.  The snow was loose and the running was going to be SLOW.  A little less than 50 people lined up and blasted out at the start.  The first ½ mile was mostly flat and wide so passing was not an issue.  Teammates Greg Hammett and Tim Mahoney took it out.  Greg used his sub-2:00 half-mile speed to forge a big lead early.  I tucked in behind Tim (actually I just tried to hang on to Tim, I was already tired…maybe from the 1:50 of running I did prior to the race).  By about a mile Greg had forged a solid 30-45 second lead and I was starting to get into a rhythm, so with a call-out of “on your left” I went around Tim.  Soon after I took a spill, maybe I was pushing too hard?

 

I could see Greg up ahead and the long steady climb was much to my liking.  The snow was powdery and deep and my favorite kind of SLOW racing.  It is amazing to be all-out and running over 10 minutes per mile!  Having Greg in front was a great motivator, I worked on closing the gap and by the summit I had him only 8 seconds ahead.  He gained some ground on the ½ mile of downhill but I closed it up a bit in another deep powder section.  It was a big advantage knowing the course and being able to pay out my effort.  I gave it my all and closed back to within 12 seconds with a mile to go.  Unfortunately for me, that last mile was almost all downhill.  Greg immediately disappeared from sight and ended up putting 1:03 on me during that final mile.  Behind us Tim stayed tough and held off a hard charge from Jeff Dengate, which gave CMS a sweep of the podium places.

 

Greg and I did another mile out/back on the course cheering people on, and then called it a day.  TiVO did a heck of a job putting on another great race at Prospect.  Hopefully he’ll get the bid and be hosting the snowshoe national championships there in 2014.

 

   Time                          Age      Sex       Team    Pts

1 50:35 Greg Hammett    35         M          CMS     100.00

2 51:50 Dave Dunham     48         M          CMS     97.73

3 55:23 Tim Mahoney      31         M          CMS     95.45

4 55:33 Jeff Dengate      35         M          CPTC     93.18

5 56:14 Rich Teal            35         M          ARE       90.91

6 56:42 Ken Clark            50         M          HTC      88.64

7 56:54 Brian Northan      37         M          Utopia   86.37

8 59:24 Dan Dix              33         M                      84.09

9 1:01:31 Donald Pacher  40         M          RunReg  81.82

10 1:01:35 Allan Bates     64         M                      79.55

11 1:07:29 Ed Alibozek    50         M          Dion      77.27

Mount Ascutney

The Mount Ascutney hill climb was the final race in the USATF New England Mountain series again this year.  I headed up this Saturday for my ninth time taking on this “hill” which is very much like running half of Mt Washington.

I met up with CMS teammate Tim Mahoney and we both set up camp and then headed up the road for a nice easy preview run of the course.  We reached the parking lot (where the finish line is) in 42 minutes.  After a couple of minutes checking out the view we headed back down.  It seemed an easy decision to pass on the additional 7/10ths of a mile (trail) up to the summit tower.  We ran down as easily as possible and hit the start line 35 minutes later. 

After a nice dinner with JJ at the local brew-Pub we hung out with Paul Kirsch (the Mountain series director) and Frank Holmes.  It made for a nice relaxing day.

I hit Dunkin’s early on race morn and then went through the usual pre-race prep.  We headed out for an easy 3 mile warm-up and then I changed into racing flats and headed out for another mile with strides.  I felt a bit flat (maybe from 18 on Friday and 16 on Saturday?), tired and a lot more nervous than “usual”.  I figured I had a shot at my 40+ PR and had splits to run right around 31:00.

The gun went off and it seemed like an all-out sprint for the first half-mile.  I found myself in 8^th very early on and in 6^th by about ½ mile in.  Double-J was way out in front with Philip Kreycik who I had run back-forth with for a good stretch at Loon Mountain.  They were flying!  I settled in behind Tim Mahoney, Ross Krause, and Todd Callaghan.  The pace seemed to become a bit more realistic after ½ mile and by the mile (8:00) I was back in the group.  I moved ahead a little later after we passed Kreycik who was walking.

I tried to put the pressure on as I moved to the front and Ross responded and stayed with me.  We slowly gapped the other guys as JJ disappeared ahead of us.  Ross and I were dead even at 2 miles (8:43/16:43) which was a couple of seconds under the pace I’d hoped for.  I knew I’d need to gap Ross soon as there were some flatter and even FLAT stretches later in the race.  Ross put the pedal down on the flatter stuff and pulled away.  He had a couple of seconds on me at 3 miles (8:39/25:22) and I was definitely hurting.

The last half-mile of the race has a couple of tough climbs and I focused on reeling Ross in.  With about 2 minutes to go I passed him and pushed for all I was worth.  I was more interested in the time than beating Ross but I’ll take any opportunity to move up a place.  I ended up crossing with my fastest last .7 and masters best of 31:04.  Double-J finished exactly one minute ahead of me and Ross rolled in 9 seconds behind me. 

CMS had a fine day with four in the top six and 6 in the top 13.

1  30:04 Jim Johnson       M3039   35         Madison, NH       CMS

2  31:04 Dave Dunham     M4049   48         Bradford, MA      CMS

3  31:13 Ross Krause       M3039   32         Easthampton,MA CMS

4  31:43 Todd Callaghan   M4049   42         Beverly, MA        GCS

5  32:33 Tim Mahoney     M3039   32         Holyoke, MA       CMS

6  32:55 Robert Hult        M4049   42         Harvard, MA       

7  33:16 Philip Kreycik      M2029   28         Cambridge, MA   

8  33:44 Erik Vandendries M4049   47         Chestnut Hill, MA

9  34:10 Matthew Zanchi M2029   22         Natick, MA         

10 34:52 Quincy Schmidt  M2029   21         Vienna, VA        

11 35:10 Jonathan Rice    M3039   33         Lunenburg, MA  

12 35:23 Tim Van Orden  M4049   44         Bennington, VT  CMS

13 35:26 Martin Tighe      M5059   54         Providence, RI    CMS

Constitution Hill 3.7 mile snowshoe race

Snowshoe double – part 2

The second part of the first snowshoe season was a return to Lanesboro MA for the Constitution hill 3.6 mile race.  I had a lot of fun at this one last year, taking it out hard in the 3’ of un-tracked snow and working with Tim Van Orden and Tim Mahoney.  This year there was less snow but it was similarly untracked for long stretches.

I hit the road for a longer warm-up to loosen up a bit from the race on the previous day.  After that I switched into snowshoes and headed out for another mile and packed out a little path where I planned to go at the start.  The first kilometer of the course looped a big field and was essentially untracked.

When the horn sounded I immediately found myself in the lead, which was fine by me because it meant I could keep the pace slow.  I threw in some fast running on a little snowmobile track but TiVo then went by when we got back in the deep snow.  Tim M then took the lead for a little and we sat behind him until the loop was completed.  At that point I took off at a pace I knew I couldn’t maintain but I wanted to put some distance on Tim (M).  TiVo came along with me and very much like last year took the lead at 14 minutes in.  By the time we hit the base of the hill he had 13 seconds on me.  About ½ way up the 500’ climb I took the lead and he tucked in.  I snuck a look back to see Tim M and Ross Krause (both CMS teammates) not far behind.  Breaking trail is a lot of work!  TiVo said he’d take over whenever I wanted and just as we reached the summit ridge I waived him around.  He was off like a shot!  The ridge was untracked but nowhere near as deep as last year.  He motored away and I just tried to stay on my feet on stay in second place.  Not much changed in the last ½ mile of descending and TiVo took his first win of the year and I took second.  CMS took the first four places.

We grabbed a few other runners and headed out for a nice easy road run warm-down to close the books on my double-race weekend.  Well, I still had over 150 miles of driving to go!

Weekend totals

Drive – 500 miles

Snowshoe – 15+ miles

Results

1 Tim Van Orden            32:58    m 43 CMS

2 Dave Dunham              33:40    m 47 CMS

3 Tim Mahoney              33:58    m 32 CMS

4 Ross Krause                34:18    m 32 CMS

5 Dave Merkt                 34:23    m 28

6 Steve Dowsett             34:55    m 23

7 Rich Teal                    35:08    m 33

8 Ashley Krause             38:16    f 34 CMS

9 John Agosto                38:37    m 47

10 Erik Wight                 38:52    m 52

 

 

Wachusett Mountain

Kicking it in (both feet off the ground) - Pic by Kristen

I’ve always enjoyed doing the Wachusett race, it was one of the first mountain races I did. I’ve never had my best performances at Wachusett due in part, at least I think, to the course not being “slow” enough for me. The traditional course with climb, break, climb, long break, long climb, was not suited to my style of running (one gear). This year the course was changed due to construction on the auto road. The new course would be up/down and ¾ trail. That would make it even less suited for me, but it is part of the USATF NE mountain series so off to Westminster I went.

Teammates Kevin Tilton, Tim Mahoney, and Abby Mahoney joined me for a run over the new section of the course. We picked up the course at about 1.8 miles and ran the loop to the finish (5.2 miles) and added on a little to check out the first single-track section. For the most part the course would be very run-able and very fast. I was very surprised to see Craig Fram as I headed over to the start. He had won the 40+ division in 2008, but has stated a number of times how much he dislikes off-road running. There were also some fast runners present including 2008 winner Ryan Carrara and more of my CMS teammates (Andy McCarron, Jim Pawlicki, Tim Mahoney and Tim Van Orden to mention a few).

The pack took off at a near sprint at the start. I think a lot of people figured they’d get a break with the long downhill single-track so why not run harder than usual at the start. I ran pretty hard and found myself in 13th as I passed the mile in 6:51. The last couple of years I’d been right around 7-flat at the mile so that was a good sign. I was very cautious on the downhill and caught Craig about ½ way down as he stood on the side of the trail and let me go by. He noted as I passed “this is not for me” and continued “I don’t want to get hurt”. I could certainly relate. I just wanted to get through the ½ mile without any major problems then press.

I hit Balance rock road in 12th place and immediately caught two guys on the first uphill pitch. The steep single-track uphill brought another guy back and got me within striking distance of Allen Spencer. The long steady downhill was fun and fast. I pushed as hard as possible and could see Jim Pawlicki, TiVO, and Todd Callaghan up ahead and somewhat closer was Tim Mahoney. I pulled up closer to Spencer but couldn’t quite get around him. As we closed a bit on Tim, the other group pulled further away. I thought about every second TiVO gained on me that I’d need to earn back on the steeper climbs later in the series. That kept me motivated to keep the hammer down.

I could see Jim, Todd, and TiVO battling at the bottom of the hill although I never saw Todd wipe out (he did a nice recreation during the warm-down). I couldn’t get around Spencer and in the chute the first thing I asked him was “are you over 40”. He was, so I ended up third master for the second year in a row at Wachusett. My percentage behind Carrara (who took Kevin in a tightly contested race up front) was nearly the same as it had been last year, so I’m pretty happy about that.

A big group headed out and ran out/back on Balance rock road for a warm-down. It was a lot of fun to rehash the race and there was an added bonus in having us turn at the water-stop so we could even get a drink on the warm-down. I was at a sugar low by the time we got back and was glad to find a cold Polar Cola and some Funny Bones. That made my day!

The complete results are not posted yet but here are the top 9.

Wachusett Mountain - May 23, 2009
5.2 mile with 1,000’ climb & 900’ drop
===== =================== === = ======= =====
1 Ryan Carrara 30:44 NB-Boston
2 Kevin Tilton 30:48 CMS
3 Andy McCarron 31:46 CMS
4 Jim Pawlicki 32:44 CMS
5 Tim Van Orden 32:45 CMS 40+
6 Todd Callaghan 32:48 GCS
7 Tim Mahoney 33:26 CMS
8 Allen Spencer(?) 33:31 BAA(?)
9 Dave Dunham 33:35 CMS 40+