Looking back - April 1999

25 years ago – April 1999: Another month with a badly sprained ankle which caused me to miss a day.  I managed 346 miles and raced three times.  First up was the Red Shoe Barn 5m.  I went out with the lead group (teammates – Richard Bolt & Tom Anderson, along with Chris Teague and Mike O’Brien) and stuck with Teague through 2 miles.  He broke away and went on to beat me by 15 seconds (24:26 to 24:41).  O’Brien and Anderson finished under 25, running 24:52 and 24:59 respectively.  A week later I headed out to Worcester for the Fred’s marathon/half-marathon.  Alex Tilson, who had raced me the year before at the Baystate marathon, was looking to run under 2:22 and asked me to lead him through the half.  I ran an evenly paced 1:10:48 to win the half with Tilson in tow.  He ended up missing the standard but set a CR with a solid 2:25:23. The final race of the month was the Groton 10k, which was a CMS goal race (they had a team prize).  It was sunny, breezy and mid-60s as the pack of about 6 of us hammered the first 5k.  Teammate Richard Bolt and I broke away with GLRR runner Chris Teague.  I gapped them on the uphill from 4-5 miles and held on for a 12 second win in 31:08.   For some reason Richard and I were not included in the team scoring for CMS, we took the team title anyway with five other CMS runners in the top 10.