Mt. Kearsage, Sunday, May 21, 2005

The kick off of the mountain circuit started this Sunday with the Mt Kearsarge hill run. Even though the Team Gloucester ranks were depleted compared to last year we still had a good showing.

Bob, Dave and Peter Vadalamet up at the usual jumping off point, Friendlys, and then headed out for the big metropolis of Warner NH.. Along the way Peter stopped and picked up another TG member Greg Lowe, and once we got to Warner Bob’s brother Mike Gillis met up with us to round out the crew. Maryka decided to watch the race this year and be official cheerleader for the team. So as you can see once again TG was well represented.  

After a brief warm up run and some stretching it was time to get on the start line and get down to business. The weather actually was quite favorable with temperatures in the mid forties and the rain we had to endure the drive up in stopped before the sound of the gun. Once under way Dave lead the pack out of Warner only to have Bob catch and pass him around mile two or so but he was able to maintain a nice even pace for the first five miles over some very challenging hills. Dave was in the zone so well he did not even acknowledge or knew that Greg had passed him by. Following on Dave’s heels were Peter and Mike so you can that the team kept a nice little pack going for the race. After the first five miles

Came the challenge of going up the auto road of the mountain 3.5 miles of climbing up to the finish line on top.  This year it was Bob who made it to the top First with a time of 1:10:28 and a 35th place overall and 3rd place in his age group--not bad for the ageing puffalump.

Following a few steps behind Bob was Greg who was still recovering from Boston and was able to push out a time of1:13:51and placed 45th overall. Next up the hill was Dave who came in looking strong with a time of 1:16:11 and a 57th overall placing. He was quite happy with the time where he has not been doing that much hill training this year compared to last year.

Following behind him was Peter and Mike peter crossed the line with a time of 1:20:05 and placed 84th and Mike rounded out the pack with a time of 1:21:32 and a placing of 90th overall out of some 200 runners that toed the line at the Start. Overall it was another great showing for the Team Gloucester runners. This year the event was much more organized than last  with the addition of more vans to get  runners back down the mountain and a nice warming tent on top with a heater in it to warm people up . Believe me that was nice where the conditions on top were cold and windy good training for Mt.Washington.

There was just one PR set this year and that was by Dave for eating the most Fig Newton bars and post race goodies especially anything with chocolate in it. Next up on the menu  for the team is Mt.Wachusett.