2005 Roxbury Race #32

Pam, Pat are this week's Roxbury Rabbit Rabbits

     The first day of October dawned chilly, with fog filling the valleys.  Those who arrived early warmed up in long sleeves, and glared jealously at those who brought hats and gloves.  By the time the race began at 8:30, the temperature had risen into the upper 40's and, though people complained, they were really quite comfortable.

    In the race itself, Ken Merrick held with rapid Pat Dennen for a while, as a pack including Mark LoSacco, Jeff Sheldon, Mike Abraham and some others watched them disappear, but soon Pat pulled away for a 36 second win.

    Among the women, Pam Quist won her first race of the year.  She had a clear gap on Mark Zerbe when she got to the two-mile mark, but as she turned on to the dirt road, something went "Ow!" in her leg and she slowed down to protect it.  She only lost one place over all, but it was about 30 seconds of time.

    Away from the leaders, Sameh Hassan was having a pleasant and successful run with his friend Ramya.  Near the bottom of Hemlock, in the tradition of Keyless Bob Derringer he realized that his car keys had fallen out of (or maybe through) his pocket.  He went back to look for them, and it cost him more than ten minutes.  Reports began to surface that this had happened before, but the last time Corinne saw them fall and told him about it.  WebGuy will be taking suggestions for a nickname for Sameh based on this incident.  "Keyless" is already taken.

    Heard during the race, one of our number recently got to visit Bratislava, in central Europe, and reports that dragons are as common there as Fossil found them to be in Slovenia and eastern Germany.  There are no dragons in Ireland, though. 

This week vs Last week

    There were some exceptional circumstances this week.  Last week, Mark Zerbe and Brian Vanderheiden were among the times that haven't yet been reported, so they are in the data base as running 0:00 last week.  They are both about 26 minutes slower this week.  Also, <Clever Nickname> Sameh Hassan decided mid-race that finding his car keys was more urgent than hurrying to the finish line, so he was 26 minutes slower, too.  They pull down the "class average" so we were, as a group, more than two minutes slower this week.

    WebGuy decided to disqualify them from this particular statistic this week (no lasting harm done.)  That done, we were an average of 15 seconds faster this week, reflecting, on the faster side, the beautiful running conditions this week, but on the slower side, the fact that a few people were back on their heels planning to run a half marathon on Sunday.  Walt Schuttler led the Most Improved category, 2:47 faster this week.  Doug Lee, running with a friend, balanced Walt, running 2:30 slower.  Kurt Thoennessen Behling (where's Andrea?) fit the profile the best.  He was 13 seconds faster, and we averaged 15 seconds faster.  Scott Benjamin was most consistent, a scant second slower this week. 

Safety

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

This week vs Last week

Created September 24, 2005