2004 Roxbury Race #11

Merrick, Kellogg Spring Champions

    Ken Merrick simply outran his nearest competition, Mike Abraham, to win the 2004 Roxbury Spring Championship race.  They were close together for a little over half a mile, but the Ken's grinding pace gradually wore down poor Abe and by the finish it left him over a minute behind.  

    Abe must have felt like he was seeing double, as his nearest pursuer was also named Ken M, but that was Ken Moffitt.

    Katie Kellogg continues her winning streak among the women, and this week she got a plaque and a ribbon to show for it.  She finished 10th over all and over three minutes ahead of her nearest rival, Sinead Blevio.

    It was a fine day for racing.  It was warm enough to run in short sleeves, and a few people went shirtless.  The sun was a bit bright, but not high enough in the sky to make it hot.  It looks like spring might finally be here.

Life Outside Roxbury

    Is Paul Teixeira really Superman?  When he finished today's race in 12th place, he had 15 minutes to get to his son's Communion.  We don't know if he made it in time, or where he changed his clothes.  Somebody suggested he changed in the phone booth outside the Roxbury General Store.

    Meanwhile, we've tracked down at least one other Missing Roxbury runner.  Jeff Field has a new life as a soccer coach.

    Sinead Blevio brought part of her life to Roxbury this week.  Her husband Hank and her two high energy children got to watch her take second place away from Andrea Behling by a margin of about 40 seconds.  What happy kids!  It was hard to tell who liked the playground more, the little kids or the big one named Hank.

Winners

    Since it was a championship, there were winners.  The top individuals for men and women won framed certificates designed by well-known Bridgewater artist and tractor collector Dave Harvey. The rest got hand made Roxbury Road Race refrigerator magnets.  We give the winners below:

This week vs last week

    We ran this course last week, so we get a chance to compare something.  Of course, it's hard to know if we get faster in one week, if the conditions were better, or if people ran harder because it was the Spring Championship, but for some reason the 22 people who ran both weeks averaged 27 seconds faster this week than they were last week.  Improvements were lead by winner Ken Merrick and the Fossil himself, both of whom had another week to recover from the Boston Marathon.  They did much to bias the results, as all but five of the 22 repeaters were within 30 seconds of last week's time.

    Mark Viklund and Tom Fisher tie for the Mr. Consistency Award this week, running just two seconds slower than they did last week.  Sorry, Mark and Tom, but you don't get a refrigerator magnet for that.

Pictures

    Up top we have Paul Butler and Corinne Bellemare at the starting line.  Paul and Corinnne we have Sinead Blevio and Jeff Fields a couple of weeks ago. Jeff has been missing, but we found him.  Then there's a picture of the finish area after the race, with Dave Harvey at the results table and the pavilion in the background.  Near the results there's a picture of Scott Benjamin in the pavilion doing the awards.      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

This week vs last week

Last modified: May 8, 2004