Looking back - June 2017

5 Years ago – June 2017: I’d been focused on the USA Mountain running championships (Cranmore Mountain) since it was announced back in December.  I thought I had a shot at winning my age group despite the course being an up/down which is not my strength.  The course featured two loops of about 3 miles with each loop climbing/dropping 1,200’.  In the early going I found myself in around 50^th place (I could see the entire field in front of me during the long open climb).  I hit the top in 18:54 which was a bit faster than last year.  The downhill was just a blur and I hit the end of loop in 27:47 which was well ahead of last year but only a step ahead of fellow 50+ Jim Boule.  I never looked back but could hear Jim right on me during the second climb.  I passed a LOT of guys during that second climb.  My second climb took 19:43, but I’d moved up to about 25^th place.  I lost a couple of spots on the down to some strong descenders but managed to hold off Jim (by 18 seconds).  I had a fast 2^nd downhill (33 seconds faster than loop 1) and my second loop was 28:03 only 14 seconds slower than my first loop.  I picked up three gold medals!  One for individual 50-54,  one for CMS open team and 50+ team.
 
1 45:49 Joseph Gray                  M33
2 46:12 Patrick Smyth               M30
3 46:57 Brett Hales                   M30
11 52:49 Jim Johnson                M40 CMS
12 52:55 Tim Van Orden            M49 CMS
19 54:16 Matt Veiga                  M30 CMS
22 54:41 Todd Callaghan           M47 CMS
28 55:50 Dave Dunham             M53 CMS
29 56:00 Scott Leslie                 M35 CMS
40 58:45 Kevin Tilton                M35 CMS
50 60:37 Steve Brightman         M48 CMS
55 62:44 Ed Sheldon                 M52 CMS
76 68:32 Paul Bazanchuk           M62 CMS
181 100:43 David Lapierre         M53 CMS

Jim Boule and I celebrating our medal runs

 
For whatever reason I just was not excited to run Mt Washington, maybe I’d spent all my energy aiming for the USA championships the prior week?  My only goals were to give a good effort and support my CMS teammates.  It was hot and humid at the start and my mantra was “get to half-way and it’ll cool”. I was barely inside of the top 50 during the first mile.  It did NOT cool off above treeline it was unusually warm and there was zero wind, a very unusual day on the Mountain.  I ended up taking 14^th place and was the top guy on the CMS winning Open, 40+, and 50+ team.  I’m pretty sure that is the only time that ever happened.
1 58:57 Joseph Gray M30
2 60:44 Sage Canaday M30
3 61:35 Eric Blake M35
10 70:13 Simon Gutierrez M50
14 73:21 Dave Dunham M50 CMS
18 74:29 Todd Callaghan M45 CMS

My 26th Mt Washington, Doug's 1st!

 
It is very rare that I run two races in a weekend, but I’d wanted to do well in the USATF NE grand prix and that meant running the Ribfest 5m the day after Mt Washington. This is probably the ugliest course in NH, an out and back on a divided highway.  Ugh!  Temps in the 80s and 100% humidity meant muscles were loose (positive spin on it).  I didn’t catch Verrington until 2 miles and Christin Doneski at 5k.  Everyone was flying out there!  I was pleasantly surprised with a 30:03 and 6^th place in the 50+

The final race of the month was the Bay of Fundy Ultramarathon a 32.5 mile race that ran in Lubec Maine and had two border crossings in and out of Campobello Canada.  I had run the half-marathon the previous year and enjoyed the race enough that I broke out of my 10 year absence from Ultra-running with this marathon+10k+more.  I had a race plan and hoped to run each 10 mile split a bit faster than the previous 10.  It was already in the 60s at 6am when I lined up with 20 other ultra runners.  I ended up running alone right from the start.  By 10k I was up by 2 minutes and didn’t have any company until the final 13 miles of course when I ran into the back of the 200+ half-marathon runners.  I’d end up passing 171 of them which helped keep focus.  I’d end up winning the race in 3:53, almost 70 minutes ahead of second place.
 

High five from the border guard!