2004 Roxbury Race #35

Dynamic Duo Triumph Again

  Autumn was in the air, and hinting at winter at this week's rerun of last week's 4.2 mile Hemlock Road/Ranney Hill Road loop. Some of us had to scrape frost from our windshields before leaving for the race, but by race time the temperature had crawled up to about 40 degrees.  It was the 35th race of the season, and only half a dozen remain in the regular season.

    The race itself was familiar.  Ace Ken Merrick simply outran his rivals Ken Moffett, Mike Abraham and Mark LoSacco, to win by 40 seconds over Moffett.  

    Among the women, Theresa Krebs went out strong, and by the mile she was in sixth place.  She was overtaken by people who had gone out a little slower and finished ninth, well ahead of last week's winner Lynn Zuback, who, in turn, was just a little ahead of twelve-year old sensation Katie Neils.

    In head-to-head rivalries, Mark Zerbe turned the tables on Ed Sandifer.  Though the fossil ran 22 seconds faster than last week and managed to catch MarkZ with just a quarter of a mile to go, the Z pulled away with a strong finish, improved last week's time by 47 seconds, and crushed the fossil by eleven seconds.

    Long-time rivals Scott Benjamin and Bob Lewis finished 19th and 20th, respectively, separated by just 14 seconds.  They have been racing each other for over 15 years now.

Improvements

    The Hemlock Road - Ranney Hill loop is one of our more difficult races, with the hill on Hemlock and then the double-whammy hill on Ranney.  In fact, as hilly as Roxbury is, Ranney Hill Road is the only road we run on with the word "hill" in its name. As a result, times vary a lot from week to week.  A little tired or sore one week can add a lot of seconds, or even minutes, to your time.

    That's why it's surprising that Mario Hasz ran exactly the same time, 33:25) last week as this week.  Maybe it's that we're using his picture on the web pages.

    Of the 24 people who ran the 4.2 mile loop both weeks, sixteen people were faster this week and seven were slower.  On the average, we improved by 21 seconds, so WebGuy, with his 22 second improvement, was the most average.  Performances were wildly inconsistent, though, with three people more than two minutes faster and two people more than two minutes slower.  Complete comparisons are at the bottom of the page.

Pictures

    Up top, Roxbury's own Chris Childs thunders toward the finish line in last week's race.  Below that, Bob Satterlee stretches before the race with the pavilion and nice foliage in the background. At right Tom McNulty, Lynn Zuback, Paul Teixeira and Cindy Scannell, running after the race, with John Kane's soccer team practicing in the background.

  Below Mario Hasz warms up just a week after running a 4:06 at the Hartford Marathon.  He'd been aiming for a 4:30. He's wearing a jacket as colorful as the foliage.

  By the results is a shot of the New Milford boys cross country team.  They showed up last week to run a workout from the Rec Area shortly after the race.  Then they went out and won the SWC Championship decisively in the middle of last week, with just 21 points.  Who would suspect that such an innocent band of runners would rampage over other teams so ruthlessly.  The Newtown team is a very good team this year, yet they finished 40 points back of these guys.  Congratulations NMHS.

Travels

   Old WebGuy is doing the page this week.  Though he didn't put the Dragon back on the page, he did put a link.  WebGuy Jr will be doing the page for the next two weeks while the Old One goes to Germany for a math event.  Maybe he'll see another dragon.

    He's not the only one who's been traveling.  Paul Teixeira just got back from a trip to India.  If you get a chance to run with him, ask him about the bottles of water and the bananas.  New Milford Cross Country coach Mike "Abe" Abraham spent much of the summer in China and and Viet Nam (as he plummeted in the prestigious Roxbury Points race).  And Terry Lyons and Carl Hunt ran into each other unexpectedly as they were both running the same marathon in the shadow of Mount St. Helens in Portland, Oregon.

Spelling

    We had some new runners this week, some of whom were apparently in a bit of a hurry when they signed up.  Old WebGuy might have misread some of their names.  Rather than apologize, he asks that you send him corrections, improvements or corrections at esandifer@earthlink.net.

Marathons

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 - 8.4 miles down to Judd's Bridge and back, followed by five 3.55 mile loops (Down Hemlock).    This makes it so we can have LOTS of water stops with just a few volunteers.  
3. Relays?  People seem to think we should include a marathon relay.  How does this sound for a relay - one 4-mile leg down to Judd's bridge, another one back up, two 7.1 mile legs, two laps each, and then one 3.55 mile leg, just one lap?  Tell Scott if you like the idea.
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.  To certify the course, we need to calibrate the bicycle wheels on an accurate three or four mile stretch of road.  Does anyone know where there is a long stretch of smooth state or US highway with those green mile markers on it?  Contact WebGuy at esandifer@earthlink.net if you know such a stretch of road.

 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

Created October 23, 2004

Web guy sez: "Click here to see the dragon!"