USA Mountain running championships – Cranmore Mountain (Conway, NH):  I’d be focused on this race since it was announce last December.  I’ve run the course before (this year was nearly identical to the 2016 course) a total of 11 previous times over various courses.  Since December I’ve also run it in my head hundreds of times.  I was pretty nervous leading up to the race as my glute had been bothering me.  I mildly strained it at Sleepy Hollow back in April and aggravated it each time I did any hard downhill running.  I really beat myself up racing down Wachusett last weekend and was regretting that as the days got fewer and the pain wasn’t really diminishing.  By race morning I felt a lot better although not 100%.  I haven’t been 100% for a race in MANY years so I wasn’t too worried.

I met up with Paul Baz and we headed out for a 2.5 mile warm-up on the flattest pavement we could find.  There would be plenty of time for climbing later in the morning.  Paul was aiming to top the 60+ field and I was hoping to do the same in the 50+.  We were both pretty sure of who our competition would be.  I figured that teammate Ed Sheldon (who was recovering from a massive bloody fall at Wachusett last week) and acidotic Racing’s Jim Boule would be the main competition.  Jim has been on my radar since last summer when he ran a very strong race at Cranmore (at the time he was 49 so not in my age group).  He’d also been running well in the first couple of Mountain series races this year.

 

I switched into CMS gear and my Inov-8 trail shoes and headed out for another kilometer of running to scout the start/finish and check out the first section of single-track.  I’d heard that we’d be running into a little single-track about 200 meters into the race.  I checked it out and although it was narrow it only lasted maybe 50 meters and then you’d be back in the open.  Anyone who panicked that early in the race was not going to do all that well in an event that really pays off for patience.  The course featured 2 loops of a little under 3 miles with each loop climbing 1,200’ in 1.6 miles (and dropping 1,200’ in 1.3 miles).

 

The men’s race hit the trail at 8:45am (with the women running at 10:30) which meant we had cooler temps and also the course wouldn’t be quite as chewed up.  Two hundred of us took off up the hill.  I was comfortable when we hit the single-track, no one was trying to storm by and I was able to run with no obstruction.  Once we hit the open slopes I could see the entire field in front of me.  I was somewhere around 50^th place.  I wasn’t really worried about pace as a bunch of guys went by, heck we weren’t even ½ mile into the race.  I could see some of my CMS teammates up ahead but did not see Ed.  I also didn’t see Jim, who I’d later find was matching me step-for-step.  At 8/10^th’s of a mile we hit the toughest stretch of the climb a brutal .2 that climbed at a grade hovering around 40%.  I went right into hands on knees powerwalking and blew by 10-15 people.  I love that section of the race, really takes something out of the fast guys (especially knowing you’d be doing it again).  I hit the top of the course in 18:54 which was a bit faster than last year and then the crazy downhill began.  My goal for the first lap was to just stay on my feet and get down without getting injured.  I made it down in 8:53 for a first lap of 27:47, this put me well ahead of last year. It did NOT put me well ahead of Jim.  Teammate Scott Leslie (2:27 marathon a week prior!) and I had been going back and forth over the first lap and when he went by as we started lap two he said something to the effect of “he is right behind you”.  I knew who he meant, since everyone was wearing age group numbers on their backs you could pick out anyone in your age group.  I appreciated Scott giving me the heads-up.  I was in 42^nd place as we passed the timing mat and headed back uphill.

 

I tried to run my own race on lap 2, I kept thinking “he’ll go by” but Jim stuck right behind me.  I never looked (I didn’t want him to know I knew he was there) but I could hear him breathing.  I picked off a few guys as we got back into the climb and on the very steep part I passed another dozen guys.  My legs were wobbly when we hit the short downhill after the brutal climb.  I took a little peek when we zig-zagged in the upper part of the glade near the top of the climb and was not surprised to see Jim right there.  I reached the top in 47:30, 19:43 for the climb which was 49 seconds slower than lap 1.  Despite the slow-down I’d moved up to about 25^th place.  I tried to push hard on the downhill, I wasn’t sure what Jim had in reserve but I didn’t have much.  A couple of speedy descenders went by but I was only thinking about my age group.  About half-way down I passed Scott and that got me thinking I had a shot at scoring for the CMS OPEN team.  I kept rolling along as fast as I was able and could no longer hear Jim (or Scott) behind me. 

 

I managed to hold on and take the top spot in the 50+, 18 seconds ahead of Jim.  I also held off Scott to secure the fifth spot on the CMS open team.  I could not have been happier!  I took home three Gold medals, my individual 50-54 age group win, CMS open team win, and CMS 50+ Gold.  CMS had a great day, scoring Gold in all of the age groups and individual medals in 40-44, 45-49 (Gold and Silver), 50-54, 60-64, and 65-69.  After going through the results I was also happily surprised to find that my final downhill split was 8:20 (33 seconds faster than loop 1) and my second loop (28:03) was only 14 seconds slower than my first loop.  No one in the top 100 finishers had a lower slow-down over the two loops, which makes me think I paced it about as well as I could.

 

Top 3 and CMS

Pl	GUNTIME	Name		AGE	SEX	CITY	STATE	Club
1	45:49	Joseph	Gray	33	M	Colorado Springs	CO	Club Northwest
2	46:12	Patrick	Smyth	30	M	Santa Fe	NM
3	46:57	Brett	Hales	30	M	Layton	UT
11	52:49	Jim	Johnson	40	M	Madison	NH	CMS
12	52:55	Tim	Van Orden	49	M	Bennington	VT	CMS
19	54:16	Matthew	Veiga	30	M	Lynn	MA	CMS
22	54:41	Todd	Callaghan	47	M	Beverly	MA	CMS
28	55:50	Dave	Dunham	53	M	Bradford	MA	CMS
29	56:00	Scott	Leslie	35	M	Rutland	MA	CMS
40	58:45	Kevin	Tilton	35	M	Conway	NH	CMS
50	1:00:37	Steve	Brightman	48	M	Providence	RI	CMS
55	1:02:44	Ed	Sheldon	52	M	Hooksett	NH	CMS
76	1:08:32	Paul	Bazanchuk	62	M	Center Conway	NH	CMS
78	1:08:50	Nick	Taormina	44	M	Gloucester	MA	CMS
105	1:16:38	Richard	Miller	66	M	Barnstead	NH	CMS
121	1:19:11	John	Martin	65	M	Hyannis	MA	CMS
151	1:27:44	Stephen	Laska	55	M	Holden	MA	CMS
181	1:40:43	David	Lapierre	53	M	Chelmsford	MA	CMS

 

Top 10 50+

50+	GUNTIME	Name		AGE	SEX	CITY	STATE	Club
1	55:50	Dave	Dunham	53	M	Bradford	MA	CMS
2	56:08	Jim	Boule	50	M	Campton	NH	acidotic RACING
3	58:47	Jeff	Walker	51	M	Falmouth	ME	Dirigo R.C.
4	1:02:44	Ed	Sheldon	52	M	Hooksett	NH	CMS
5	1:03:01	Brian	Ruhm	52	M	Nashua	NH	Gate City Striders
6	1:03:41	Stephen	Reed	59	M	Penacook	NH
7	1:05:34	Richard	Fargo	58	M	Chatham	NH
8	1:09:44	Rick	Chalmers	55	M	South Portland	ME	Dirigo R.C.
9	1:12:35	Joseph	Benoit	51	M	Worcester	MA
10	1:15:43	Todd	Brown	53	M	Rocky Hill	CT	North Medford Club