Monday, August 8, 2022

Looking back - August 1992

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.





No comments: