October 5th - Joe Shairs, Todd Callaghan, Dennis Floyd, and I arrived at Franklin Park for the USATF New England Open and Masters Cross Country Championships. They set up the CMS tent while I went to pick up the team bib numbers. It was cool and sunny. The Friday and Saturday rains soaked the course to the point where the race had a detour for the start of the Wilderness loop. I never saw the standing water but it was best to avoid it from what I heard. The start of the Wilderness loop was basically the exit. I measured the course as 5.0 miles after my race was done.
I warmed up 30 minutes before the 10AM start time (mastersr ace was the first of the day) with some of the CMS guys to see how the course looked. We ran the Wilderness loop, the back side of White Stadium, and Bear Cage Hill. The upper half of the Wilderness loop was soggy and the area behind White Stadium was a little muddy but one could dance past most of it. The messy part of the course would be in front of White Stadium on the field. This I did not see before the race so it was a surprise. Good old cross country mud! I picked the New Balance Trail shoes over the Inov8 flats. We had 12 CMS masters and seniors at the starting line.
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| With Brian heading around the backstop Photo by Kim Gordon |
The opening mile of the race was the usual crazy chaos of 120 men sprinting out across the field which I found a few slippery spots. I got behind Chris Smith and Mark Reeder early and through mile 1 which looked like 5:35 per Garmin after the race. Teamate, Nick Taormina was just in front of us. He has been racing so well this fall. Brian Rhum from Gate City Striders and I kept company back and forth.
He pushed us through Wilderness, loop one. I pushed us through Wilnderness the second time, passing Nick and Michael McGrane (BAA) in the process. I was trying to get close to two guys ahead at mile 4, one turned out to be John Sullivan from HFC. Brian went by me before the entry to Bear Cage Hill. We clawed to the top. Once I got myself together, I pushed down the backside of the hill. This is how it would set me up to the final straight away. I held my place, 39th overall with a finish time of 29:37. Nick was right behind me. The masters team would finish 3rdoverall and the Senior team would do the same.
I ran another 1.5 miles with the team and camped out atthe CMS tent to watch the women’s race and then the men’s open race. The CMS open team would finish 10th in a competitive race. The guys picked the tent up and met me at the finish line where I was fixing some errors in theteam results. We went to Backlash Beer Company for some Pizza.
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| Trailing Brian again at Franklin Park Photo by Kim Gordon |
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| The 8K turned into a 5 mile. Blue spot is where the water flooded the start of the wilderness loop. |
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