Looking back - 5 years ago

I'm headed back to the Olde Salem Green race tomorrow.  Last time I was there was 2007.

5 Years ago (March 2007) – I had a busy March running six races.  I finished first twice, second three times and 10^th once.  I kicked off the month getting my lunch handed to me by Dmitry Drozdov as he buried me in the last ½ mile of the Hawley Kiln snowshoe race.  It was Dmitry’s first snowshoe race (and I don’t think he’s run another).  The next day I was a bit tired and beat up but I was able to hold off Al Bernier in the last half-mile of the Greylock Glen snowshoe race and took the win by a couple of seconds.  After the race Al and I spent a good part of the day hiking up and running down Mt Greylock. The highlight of the day was running down the Thunderbolt trail with Al calling out our altitude (from his Altimeter) as we made the rapid decent down the former ski run.

 The following weekend I finished second to Paul Low (remember him?) at the Northfield Mountain Mass state championships (snowshoe) which closed out my season of snowshoe racing.  The next weekend I was on the roads and took a win at the Hibernian race in Peabody.  I followed the police car after taking the lead and the cop led the entire field down the wrong road.  It turned out to be about the same distance, the policeman didn’t want to drive the course because it went the wrong way down a one-way street!  The next week I raced Dan and 80 others over the snowy Olde Salem Green XC course.  Dan was out in front by ¾ of a mile and I ran the race alone finishing 25 seconds back 18:58 to 19:23.  The final race of the month was the Gilmanton 5k, which is one of my favorites.  I took 10^th place in 17:39 over a course that has a brutal hill at 2 miles.  Eric Morse was top master in 16:37 and Dan was 2^nd 40+ in 17:15.