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FLRC Newsletter - December 2004 |
| The Last Hurrah | |
Herb Engman and I got chewed out by Diane Sherrer for posting a carpooling time at the last minute. We were the only ones at Teagle at 6:30 am to travel together to the finale of the 2004 Fall Cross-Country Series. The three strong FLRC women's teams were already on the road, and the men's open team showed up soon after.
The simplified Genesee Valley Park course was designed by Pete Glavin to host the national event next year (to be accurate, next year the weekend after Thanksgiving, when there will be two feet of snow in Rochester). It is maximally unchallenging, but set up nicely for spectators: It is basically three loops of the McQuaid course for 6K (women and men's masters) and four loops for the 8K course (open men).
The FLRC women won the vets race and series, the masters were second, the open women third. Lorrie Marnell had a great race after her 50K tune-up the week before in Mendon Ponds Park. The FLRC vets women, who won every race, have a mountain of beer in Diane Sherrer's garage, which they say they would like to trade for hard liquor.
For me, the most thrilling aspect of this race and the entire series was the return of the High Noon Athletic Club men's open team to glory. Pete Glavin remarked on this at the awards ceremony, harkening back to the legendary HNAC teams of the early 1990s. Both the men and women's open races had a ton of very talented nonseries runners present for the invitational, including a passel of open women from GBTC, Indiana Invaders, and Canada running in the 21s for 6K. But Tod Markelz held on to third place overall in the series, and Geoff H. for tenth—the best series finishes by local open men in a long time. Complete results at www.peteglavin.com.
Tim Ingall was the lone representative of the once-proud HNAC men's masters team, and Tim had a great race, battling with Tom Hartshorne all the way, while wearing hardly any clothes. The men's vets team was cooked after getting beat by Checkers at Moakley two weeks ago, but Tom H. had another fantastic race, actually winning the category because Jim Robinson ran with the GVH masters team. The team finished second in the race and the series.
The temp in T-Burg was 18°F when Herb and I drove through, maybe 30 at the start of the masters race. The turf on the course was half frozen but muddy in places, definitely a spike course. The course starts in the middle of the large grassy field on the McQuad course, runs to the end of the field, comes back and loops down by the river (muddy), climbs up the slight hill by the parking lot, and then repeats same three or four times.
I started out faster than in recent races and was able to keep Tim and Tom in sight, but no better. My series-long rival Ron Blackmore from the Chargers passed me by the river on the first lap, getting the juices flowing; I passed him back, then on the first uphill Steve Forrestel from Checkers passed me. I realized on the downhill that I was willing to run with more abandon than he was, using the Bisgoni freestyle, and we had a little elbow joust as the course turned parallel to the river on the flat. The rest of the race I was able to keep just ahead of Blackmore, Forrestel, and Ted Paget (also Checkers), the three guys who beat me at Moakley, good enough for second place vet in the depleted field. Tom took second place in the series competition and with OMH and Charlie absent, I took third.
The vets team took 1, 2, 11 (Herb, a great race beating Dave Blake again), 16 (Dave Fernandez—need him back next year), and 21 (Joe Reynolds, SuperVet series winner with a great championship race finish, out-kicking Jerry Smith), with Jim Miner moving up a lot of places in sixth. As it turned out, we would have been beaten out of second place in the race and the series by GVH, if not for their strategy of registering Jim Robinson as a master.
Another great year, everybody—remember that Jimmy B. has, somewhere in his basement, the one case of beer won by a male team.
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