2006 Roxbury Race #9

Sheldon & Quist: Last Week's winners are This week's winners

    For Income Tax Day, the weather was different.  The field was larger, but the result was the same.  Pam Quist and Jeff Sheldon bested all challengers for the second week in a row.  Jeff's nearest challenger was Joe Whelan, 41 seconds back, while Pam eluded Kyle Knight by 108 seconds.

    It was an odd, warm and foggy spring morning, with an unusual excess of earthworms on the roads.  The field was a generous 66 runners, including Roxbury first-timer Rosie Morehouse.  Rosie is in one of our new pictures this week.  See if you can spot her before you get to the Captions paragraph below.

This week vs Last week

    Though everyone agreed that conditions were ideal for running, people averaged only five seconds faster this week than last week.  Some people, Mark LoSacco for example, were taking it easy in advance of Monday's Boston Marathon, and that may have skewed the data a bit.  Twenty of the 31 people who ran both weeks were faster this week, led by Prasama, who was over three minutes faster.  Mark LoSacco undid all her hard work by being more than three minutes slower.  Meanwhile, Steve "The Navigator" Schoeller tried a new shortcut to the starting line and started two minutes after the rest of us.  

    Chris Childs was most consistent, only one second slower this week than last week.  Jeff Sheldon exactly matched the average improvement, exactly five seconds faster this week than last.

    Complete comparisons are in the table at the bottom of the page.

People

    Former college kid and New Milford High star Kevin Harrington came home for the weekend and finished 9th.  He brought his girlfriend Emily, who finished 53rd, and, of course his father Dennis is here lots. He finished 50th.  Kevin lives near Hartford now, graduated from Springfield College last year.

    Rosie edged Thor this week, as the Silver Division was a little larger than usual.

    Kurt Behling (48th today) reports that Andrea Thoennessen has been missing races lately because she's been hurt.  Fossil, to show he's a sensitive guy, sent us a poem about injured athletes, so, just to be nice to him, we put it at the bottom of the page.  Hurt Hawks by Robinson Jeffers.

    Tom Snyder (52nd) pulled out all the stops this week, bring a full cheering squad, two kids, the dog and his parents, visiting from Chatham, MA.  Charming kids explained that Mom was at yoga, but might come another week.  Grandma and Grandpa reminded us what a beautiful town Roxbury is.  We are lucky, aren't we.

    Carl Hunt (45th) ran a 100 mile race in North Carolina last week.  It was a monster tough course, and it took him 42 hours.  That's a full week of work.  Carl's already run a marathon in all 50 states, plus DC, so when he looks for new challenges, they have to be REALLY challenging.

    WebGuy will miss the next two races for a trip to Texas.  He will accept praise, but address complaints to WebGuyJr if you actually want anything done about them.

Safety

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

Last week vs This week

Created April 15, 2006

Hurt Hawks

by Robinson Jeffers

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.

You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.