Assault on Mount Hood

Another trip to Melrose for the Assault on Mount Hood 3.5 mile cross country race. It was a cold but dry and sunny. A little wind did not matter much as we did not run in any one direction for more than two minutes. In AOMH fashion, not only was this a new course, but runners got to hang out at the Golf Club near the parking lot this year. That meant white table cloths instead of the flannel at the Fish and Game Club. Yours truly did not hang out after the race but rumor had it not much food or beer was swirling unless you opened up the wallet.

As for the race? I took a digger, epic fall onto pavement on a 90 degree left turn on mud which looked like dry dirt. I must have stepped on a banana peel. The fall was violent enough to stop my GPS watch at 0.6 miles. I was lucky not to take anyone else out. I did not break anything so I got up and got moving with the adrenaline flowing, thanking the CSU guys for ensuring that I was OK.

As usual, constant up and down nature makes this race so much fun. Krissy arrived before the start and took some video. I will try to link them up below. When the dust settled, I ran 22:54, 20^th place. I got a mini-nutcracker from the table so I have a memory of the race aside from some sore body parts the next day or two.

Scott Mindel is a beast, winning his 3rd Mount Hood race in a row.

2018 Assault on Mount Hood 3.5 mile cross country race results

Fourteenth Annual Assault on Mt. Hood XC Race

Saturday, December 8, 2018 Start time 12 noon

CMS runners below

    1  322 Scott Mindel    1/37   M3039 32 M Burlington     MA   19:20  5:32

    9  314 Gregory Putnum  2/64   M4049 49 M Stoneham       MA   20:44  5:56

   11  208 Joshua Perks    4/64   M4049 44 M Windham        NH   21:27  6:08

   12  194 Eric Narcisi    4/37   M3039 38 M North Andover  MA   21:34  6:10

   20  203 James Pawlicki  6/64   M4049 44 M Lynn           MA   21:54  6:16

   21  311 Jeff Goupil     6/37   M3039 31 M Arlington      MA   21:55  6:16

   22  247 Joe Shairs      1/58   M5059 50 M Peabody        MA   22:09  6:20

   37  148 David Lapierre  6/58   M5059 54 M Chelmsford     MA   24:15  6:56 

   60  320 John Pajer           10/58   M5059 56 M Leicester      MA   25:17  7:14

Mill Cities Relay

“Bib number 143,” was called out by the exchange official. “143!”Oh shit, that’s me as I walked into the exchange zone expecting to be a fewminutes early. Scott Abrams was standing there looking around. I jumped intothe exchange zone and took the snap band and asked how long he was waiting. “Oneor two minutes” said Scott. That was our introduction. I had no time to apologize.

I burned rubber from the boathouse on the Merrimack Riverfor the start of leg 4, the long one (9.4 miles) of the five legs within theMill Cities Relay. Thomas Bok, Brian Lavallee, and Scott Abrams ran the firstthree legs and were a minute or two ahead of schedule. All I had to worry aboutwas to run down Rt. 113 via Lowell, Dracut, to Methuen to hand off to MichaelQuinn who would anchor the SRR masters team into Lawrence.

A guy I did not know was immediately next to me after the boathouse.He commented on the personality of the exchange zone official. We introducedourselves after determining that we were both looking to run low six minutemile pace. Corey Girard was running for the Greater Manchester Running Club(formerly Athletic Alliance). Two guys passed us within the first 600m. Theywould be the only two to pass along our leg. We ran through the drizzle andaround as many puddles as possible. Krissy and I had the same leg. It caught up to here on the trail along the river. 

I yelled out splits each mile as Corey and I were feeding off it for confirmation that we were hitting pace. He was holding his own andwe seemed to be matching pretty well as the miles went by. We both seemed content with the pace. I did push the sixth mile for the fastest of all with a 6:05.

It was cool to see Dave Dunham who snapped a few photos. Hewas around six miles (shared that Dan Verrington was just up ahead where ittook me a few miles to catch him) and then after 9 miles. Corey took off as weapproached our exchange zone hand off catching one of the guys that passed us 9miles earlier. It was pretty cool to randomly run with and have company from arunner for 99% of the leg sharing the work along the way.

I thanked Corey after we handed off to our respectiveteammates. My guy, Michael Quinn would finish up for our team who was 33^rdoverall and the 7^th men’s masters team for the day. My time was58:45 (6:12 per mile pace) for 9.45 miles.

Splits: 6:20, 6:13, 6:08, 6:15, 6:09, 6:05, 6:13, 6:16, 6:13,6:09 for the last .4