2004 Roxbury Race #10

Andrejczyk, Kellogg triumph

    Mark Andrejczyk and Mike Abraham had a real battle for this week's Roxbury title.  They passed each other three times, never more than five yards apart.  Finally, with just a mile to go, Mark made the last move and pulled away for a 30 second win.  With a thin week for volunteers, Mark took the job of handing out sticks at the finish line, while Mike undid Mark's job by collecting sticks and writing down names.  Meanwhile, Bob Lewis ran the stopwatch.

    Among the women, Katie Kellogg won convincingly, but it was a tight race for second place.  After two and a half miles, Four women, Lynn Zuback, Cindy Scannell, Nora Hulton and Sinead Blevio were lined up in a space of just ten meters.  Then the hill came and stirred things up a bit.  First, Lynn and Sinead moved off the front, and then Sinead pulled away a bit, while Nora moved ahead of Cindy.

    It was a blustery day for racing, alternating between bright sun that made it warm and dark clouds that carried a chill with them.  Except for the wind, it was a wonderful day for racing, though we attracted only 39 runners, the smallest field yet this year.

Boston Marathon

    It was the hottest Boston Marathon in more than 15 years.  It was nowhere near as hot as 1976, when the thermometer at the start read 105 degrees.  It was probably as hot as 1987, when it was officially 87 degrees, though this year it was officially only 85.  There was a bank thermometer about 22 miles that read 86 degrees, and that was after the hottest part of the day.

    Times were the slowest in decades.  Among men, a 2:29 got you into the top 25, and the top woman's time would have put her about fifth overall, and 100th place was only a 2:47.

    Our intrepid Roxbury runners suffered along with everyone else.  All of them were slower than they had been in qualifying for the race.  Results are at the bottom of the page.  Let us know if we forgot anybody.

    In this week's results, the three Boston Marathon finishers who ran this week are noted in Bold Face, because there doesn't seem to be a "really tired and sore" font.

Streakers

    Some people are aware that the Fossil has run the Boston Marathon way too many times.  If he had any friends, they should  probably try to talk him out of ever doing it again.  For what it's worth, though, he stands tied for 7th place on the all time list for consecutive Boston Marathons, and all the people ahead of him finished this year's marathon, so he didn't move up the list.  "The List" was clearly on many of their minds, as four of the six Streakers ahead of Fossil took over five hours this year.  It was a tough year.

Pictures

    Up top we have Richar Laxar at the finish line last week.  Below George we have Sinead Blevio and Jeff Fields before last week's race. Jeff missed this week.Then we have a picture of Ken Moffitt behind Mario Hasz.  Ken ran Boston last Monday, and suffered less than some others did.  We like that nice rock wall in the background, across West Apple Lane from the Recreation Area.  It really is pretty, isn't it?  Below that, we have blacksmith Charlie Euston last week.    Way down at the bottom, we have two of the Fossil's pictures from Slovenia.

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

This week's results

Boston Marathon Results

Last modified: April 24, 2004