30 years ago: I had hit or miss race results back in August of 1992. I was preparing for my first trip to the World Mountain running championships and training hard during the month. I started off with two races within an hour in Oakham, MA. There was a little bit of cash if I could break the course record. I decided to take a crack at both records (5k & 5m). I started with the 5k running a 14:43. After a brief break I headed out and ran 26:12 on the 5 mile course running just fast enough to break the course record.
Two weeks later I had one of the worst races I’ve ever had (based on my form heading into the race). I headed to Parkersburg WV for the USATF half-marathon championships. I was hoping to run in the 1:05 range and could only muster a 1:08:02. My training log says, “felt awful the last 4 miles”. I ended up finishing in a very disappointing 38th place. The following week I was off to Europe for the first of many trips across the pond for the Mountain running championships. We tuned up with a race up the Kitzbuhelerhorn in Kitzbuhel Austria. The course is similar to Mt Washington in total climb but had a mostly flat first 3k and a very tough last kilometer. I ended up finishing in third place (59:22) over the 8 mile course that climbed over 4,000’ and won $400, my first international prize money! The following week we traveled to Susa, Italy and trained on part of the course. The World Champs course was just over 9 miles and had over 5,000’ of climb and one big drop of about 400’. I ended up just cracking the top 10 with a 9th place finish (1:13:08). I was kind of disappointed as I’d worked my way up to 5th place on the big climb but lost 7 spots on the downhill (I was not good at downhill running). I gained back a few spots on the final climb but vowed to come back the following year and get into the top 5.
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