2004 Roxbury Race #31

Exciting race despite timing mishap

    Every once in a while, the weather is perfect, and it helps us forget about hurricane-haunted races like we had last week.  Thirty seven runners toed the starting line.  Early arrivals traveled in the fog, and got to watch a hot air balloon launch.  We got a shot of the balloon inflating behind today's fourth place finisher and sometime WebGuy Mark LoSacco.  The weather just doesn't get any nicer.

    The race went off fast for some people.  Jeff Sheldon took the early lead, pursued by Mark Andrejczyk, with Ken Merrick and Mark LoSacco watching from a few meters behind.  By the time they reached the mile, the two groups had merged, and were running single file, in the order Merrick, Andrejczyk, Sheldon and LoSacco.  The group simply spread out on the hill.  For the last two miles, nobody passed anybody, and they finished in the same order that they had gone past the General Store, just not so close together.

    Among the women, it was a contest between last week's winner, Pam Quist, and winner the week before, Theresa Krebs.  They were together for three quarters of a mile when Pam dropped back a bit.  Krebs stretched the lead over the last three miles, but they finished consecutively, in 10th and 11th places. 

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

Timing

    The timer malfunctioned this week.  Actually, it ran out of paper right after Carl Rosa crossed the finish line in 23rd place, with a time of 31:18.  We asked around and a few people remembered their own times.  George Herman ran a 33:21, and Wise Guy Walt Schuttler says he "had a good time," so we put that in the results.  

    So, if your time isn't listed, and if you got it, would you please send it to WebGuy Sr at esandifer@earthlink.net ?  

    Don't worry about next week.  We have more paper.  We'll have to find some different way to mess up.

Improvements - Last week vs This

    Conditions were dramatically better this week, so it is no surprise that people whose times survived the timing problem averaged 31 seconds faster this week than last.  Mark Zerbe led the doublers with an improvement of 1:32.  Only Paul Butler was slower, and he only slowed down a minute.  Tom McNulty and Corinne Bellemere ran both weeks, but we don't have their times for this week.  See above.

Extraordinary runs

    Walt Schuttler was back this week.  He's been missing for about a month.  Those who know him know that he usually beats arch-rival Mo van Moffaert, but this week, she was five places and who knows how much time (see above) ahead of him.  So, we demanded an excuse from Walt.  Was he hurt?  Was he sick?  Had he not been training?

    Walt had an excuse.  Last week, he spent a huge part of the weekend running the Canandaigua Fifty Miler in 10:12.  That's ten HOURS.  He ran it without a watch and the race didn't have mile marks, so he had to run it on how he felt, rather than based on what the time and the mile marks told him.  It worked.  The one time he asked, he figured he was about half way, and they were at 27 miles.  His internal odometer was working just fine.  His clock was kind of messed up.  His goal had been to break 12 hours, and he did that by almost two hours.  Congratulations, Walt!

    Meanwhile, where's Carl Hunt this weekend?  He's at the Grand Canyon, doing the Rim to Rim double.  They start at the South Rim, run down to the river, up the other side to the North Rim, then turn around and go back to where they started.  Good luck, Carl.

Pictures

    Up top, we have Mark LoSacco standing in front of the hot air balloon.  It's symbolic.  The numbers on Mark's scales have been going down of late.  When he first joined us a couple of years ago, the balloon wouldn't have looked nearly so big by comparison.  Below Mark, we have Terry Lyons and women's points leader Lynn Zuback in the parking lot in front of the cars of the people watching the soccer game.  Below that is George Hermann, then Harry Ong, who ran well today, and another of Lynn Zuback from a couple of weeks ago.

    Way down at the bottom, the Dragon remains.  To answer Web Guy Jr's question last week about whether Dragons mind the rain:  This picture was taken in a snowstorm.  The snow seemed to melt as it touched the Dragon, though, and it didn't seem to bother the Dragon at all.

Upcoming Races
Monroe Madness Road Race Series - 2.6 miles - Sun October 10 - 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, just three months from now.

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 (esandifer@earthlink.net )  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.  
3. Relays?  People seem to think we should include a marathon relay.  
4. Who?  Scott Benjamin is Race Director, and many people are already volunteering.  When you volunteer, be sure to tell him what you are willing to do to help.  He'll try to keep a list.
5. If we want to use this to qualify for Boston or anything, there are some hoops necessary, like getting the course certified and sanctioned.  Anyone willing to do that work?

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

This week's results  

Last week vs this

Created September 25, 2004