GBTC XC Festival

Nakri, Joe and I arrived at Elm Bank Reservation for a quick canopy set up for the team and to register for the GBTC XC Festival 5K. This was the second of the five USATF New England Cross Country Grand Prix races. Our open team was second in the 1st race in Manchester, while our men's masters team had the only masters team with five men. We met up with Nate Jenkins, Dan Verrington, and Joshua Perks who were already there. We headed out for a warm up to preview the course. The course was dry (no puddles or mud) even though some light rain and drizzle was about earlier in the morning. If anything, the grass was damp. I ran this course the last few years (last year 17:19 in the 5K open race) so I knew the course well. I was happy about two things today: having five guys for the masters team, and the rain holding off.  After a 10 minute delay, we got our masters 5K race started.  Joe, Josh, and I got right to the front to lead the race. I led them through the first 800 meters but took a back seat to them into the mile, 5:33. We went past the start/finish at 2K as the top three in the race which I was pretty excited about. We went past the soccer fields and I felt Josh picking it up, dropping Joe and I through mile 2 (5:39). We hit the rooted trail along the Charles River with good command of the top three overall but l lost a few more strides to them. Josh (17:07), Joe (17:21) and I (17:29) finished in that exact order. Dan and Nakri were 9th and 21st. Our combined cross country scoring (finish place vs all other teams with the five scorers) beat all other teams. We got a team pie for which Joe picked out Blueberry. However, he nor Nakri wanted to cut it up so it came back to my house. Here is to the rest of the cross country season. 

GBTC XC Festival results