2003 Roxbury Race #37

Fall Championship

Merrick, Hulton are Fall Champions

    Late summer, or at least early fall, returned to Roxbury for the annual Mid Autumn Championships.  Thirty four people paid $5 each for the opportunity to hear Dave Harvey give two commands.  On command, they all dashed down West Apple Lane, down some more on South Street, then endured a long grueling climb back River Road, then the Jeep Trail itself.

    Roxbury residents finished second and third for both men and women, while the winners in both divisions came from considerably farther away.  Ken Merrick lives in New York, just across the state line from Kent, while Nora Hulton lives in Cornwall.

    Early on, it was clearly a three person race.  Ken Merrick is just three weeks off an excellent marathon, so his legs are still a bit unreliable.  Mike Abraham's New Milford Cross Country team won the State Open Championship on Friday (see below), and Roxbury Rookie Drew Firmender just finished his high school cross country season helping Shepaug to a Class S state championship.  

    Going down South Street, Ken, who won the Spring Championship, opened up a lead on Summer Championship winner Abe, and Abe got a gap on Drew.  It looked like that's how things would stay, since people usually say that young runners fade in the middle of a long race, but watch out at the end, because they usually finish faster than older ones.  Throw away the rule book, though.  Young Drew didn't fade.  About half way up the brutal Jeep Trail hill, Drew caught and passed Abe.  Throw away the other rule book, too, because Abe dug deep and put together a finish strong enough to beat Drew's young legs.

    Mark Andrejczyk finished fourth, followed by the Dinosaur Brigade, five old runners aged, in order of finish, 51, 48, 51, 51 and 53.

    Among the women, Nora Hulton, who also won the summer championship, edged Roxbury resident Gisela Boelhouwer by just over a minute.

New Milford grabs state open championship

    On Friday, Mine Abraham's New Milford Cross Country team won the State Open championship by a decisive 49 points, 88-137 over second place Manchester.  Most of the team have run Roxbury at least a couple of times.  Ben Danton won the April 3 race, and Nate Beatty won on June 14.  Congratulations to all, and good luck next Saturday  at the New Englands.

Unknown

    We identified last week's Unknown Runner.  She was Sinead Blevio, in 23rd place in 33:22, between Carl Hunt and Carl Myhill.  Nice rookie performance, Sinead.

 Rookie of the Year and Most Improved

    Forms for making nominations on-line are now available by clicking here.  Each year, we give an award for the Most Improved Runner and to the Rookie of the Year. Nominations will be closing soon, and we will have the election itself during the middle of November.  If you want to compare people's performances to last year, you can follow the link to the 2002 page at the bottom of the main Roxbury Page.  You can also use that to see if your candidate ran much last year and find out if he/she is a rookie.

    Our definition of "rookie" is a little fuzzy.  Basically, a rookie is someone who didn't run "much" last year.  If the person didn't run enough to be a rookie last year, then he/she's a rookie this year.  This makes Lou Denaro a rookie, with one race last year.  So are Mark Losacco, Mario Hasz and Marge Demarrais, but not Tom McNulty, Scott Benjamin or Mark Andrejczyk.

    We already have a number of nominations.  For most improved: Ken Merrick, Bob Lewis, Katie Neils, Mark Andrejczyk, Bill Gillen, Paul Teixeira.  For rookie, Lou Denaro, Mario Hasz and Mark Losacco.  If you have more ideas, use the nomination form above, or talk to Bob Lewis or to WebGuy himself.

Pictures

    Up top we have a former Shepaug runner, Dave Harvey, and a current Shepaug runner, today's third place finisher, Drew Firmender. A little below that we have the first and second finishers in the Over 50 group, Steve Benoit and Ken Moffitt.  Farther down, a shot of five Roxbury residents who ran today's race, Gisela Boelhouwer, Mo van Moffaert, Chris Childs, Mike Abraham and Drew Firmender.

    At the bottom, a scene you may have missed if you were concentrating too much on the race.  Just after we turn on to River Road, there is a waterfall on the right.  With all the rain this week, it was particularly beautiful.  Didn't run as fast as you planned?  Just say you slowed down to look at the waterfall.

The Roxbury Races are now listed on the Internet both on RunningInTheUSA and on HiTekRacing.com

This week's Roxbury results

Last modified: November 1, 2003