2004 Roxbury Race #28

The Quick & The Tired

    Love it or hate it, 54 participants were on hand for The Roxbury Mile part 2.  People generally have mixed feelings about this race.  For those of us long past our High School and College running careers attempting to run a fast mile is like trying to remember your second grade teacher's name.  You know its in there somewhere.  Well, at least the pain is short lived.

   The pain was shortest for the Levy brothers (Adam and Andrew).  Technically the win was given to Adam by the scorer at the race, although they crossed the line hand in hand with a time of 5:03.  That's brotherly love.  They were one second faster than Akselrad's time back in May when we did this the first time.

  Andrea Behling's pain was also quickly passing as she crossed the line first for the women, making her the undisputed women's mile champion this year at Roxbury.  Spurred by Marge DeMarrais, who finished a very close second, Andrea shattered her previous course record with a time of 5:49.  That beats the previous record by 16 seconds.  Kudos for Marge who crossed the line with the same time.  Marge is tough to beat at the shorter distances and we look forward to seeing her more often now that the race lengths are shortening again.

    One nice thing about The Roxbury Mile is that it allows for the younger folks to complete the official course without having to run alternates.  This edition of The Mile included no less than 10 runners aged 14 and under.  For some, like Liliana Neils, this was the furthest they had ever run.

  The runs, which start and finish near the Everett Hurlbut Community Park on West Apple Lane, are sponsored by the Roxbury Recreation Commission.

Improvements

Below this week's results is an improvements table comparing times for all those who ran both Roxbury miles this year.  Most Improved honor goes to Steve Schoeller who improved by just over 2 minutes.  Most Consistent award is shared by Mark Zerbe and Sinead Blevio who each improved by one second over May's times.

Pictures

Up top we have a shot of Andrea Behling from the MidSummer Championship race.  To the right, Adam Levy, taken last year.  Then Harry Ong getting close to the finish line.  Below that, Rapid Lynn Zuback gives us a big wave. Way down at the bottom, the Dragon is back.  That's because, by the end of race today, we were all "dragon."  ("Dragon"  "dragging" - get it?  Sorry.)

Upcoming Races
Monroe Madness Road Race Series - 3.1 miles - Sun September 12 - The Monroe Road Race Series is organized by Roxbury regular Mark Andrejczyk.

Marathons

Update: The latest idea is to run the marathon on the Saturday after the regular series ends.  That would be Saturday, December 11.

Scott Benjamin has taken the lead in getting it organized.  If you have ideas, talk to Scott, or talk to Fossil, or eMail Web Guy (address above)  We'll remind you of the issues.

1. When?  Saturday, December 11 
2. Course - We're considering 8.4 miles down to Judd's Bridge and back, followed by five 3.55 mile loops.    This would make it so we could have LOTS of water stops with just a few volunteers.  However, the numbers don't work out to use the usual 6.4 mile Falls Road loop.  Any suggestions for a fairly un-Alp-like opening loop?
3. Relays?  People seem to think we should include a marathon relay.  
4. Who?  Who wants to take charge of all this? (Answer:  Scott Benjamin, plus whoever wants to help)

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

This week's results  

Created September 4, 2004