Senior competition

Seniors at the USATF NE Mountain series

 

I can’t speak for the other guys but I had a lot of fun competing in the USATF Mountain series this year.  As was the case last year the competition was heated in the 50-59 age group.  We had a lot of back and forth over the year with me, Erik Vandendries, Jim Boule (aR), and Ed Sheldon all winning at least one of the races.

 

The different styles of mountain running definitely played into each of our strengths and weaknesses.  I feel that my descending is not really a strength for me (at least TECHNICAL descending) but I got all three of my wins on courses that featured significant up and down.  Jim Boule is also a good descender, although his win was at the predominantly uphill Loon race, his best performance in the series (in my opinion) was his 2^nd place at Cranmore (up/down) which was also the USA

championships.  Erik Vandendries is probably the strongest climber of the group and his wins at Greylock (uphill road) and Mt Rosebrook (uphill dirt road) seem to back that up.  Ed Sheldon has amazing range.  He has been mixing it up on the roads, track, trails, Ultra, and Mountains.  His win at Wachusett and his very fast winning time at Pack were impressive.  Ed had a couple of bad spills over the year at a couple of mountain races and the New England trail championships but he kept coming back for more (including a win at the 50km trail championships).

 

I look forward to battling with these guys next year.  I think we’ll all be looking for second place as teammate Tim Van Orden (who finished 2^nd in the series in the 40-49 age group) will be 50 next year.

 

	Average Place	Sleepy	Pack	Wachusett	Cranmore	Loon	Greylock	Bretton Woods	Mt Rosebrook
Me	1.8	1	2	2	1	2	3	1	2
Erik Vandendries	2.5	4	3	3	-	3	1	-	1
Jim Boule	2.6	2	-	5	2	1	-	-	3
Ed Sheldon	2.7	3	1	1	4	6	2	2	-
Jeff Walker	4.7	-	-	6	3	5	-	-	-
Brian Ruhm	5.0	-	-	7	5	4	4	5	-