Back to Back Scarecrow Attack

I’ve raced lots of doubles and even triples at track meets, but somehow in all my years of racing I’ve never raced back to back days. Going into this weekend I had no plans on changing that.

Sunday was the 3rd meet in the PGXC series and Lisa was supposed to take some time to herself  (well herself and some of the other lady racers) while I stayed home with the kids. Even though we have had some very generous babysitting help from people connected to the team, it is nice to go to race without having your attention pulled in many directions. Having no cross country racing responsibilities I figured I would jump into the Safe Journey Scarecrow 5k on Saturday morning. It is a mile away from my house and they had $100 prize money for 1st masters runner.

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I shuffled down to the race and put in a pretty solid effort finishing 2nd overall and 1st masters running in 16:26. As an interesting aside I ran 16:28 in 2012 and 16:27 in 2013, if I keep this up I’ll break 16 on the Scarecrow course when I am 67 years old. I got my butt kicked by Kenny Goodfellow who ran a 16:02 only 6 days removed from his 2:33 marathon performance (seriously wtf Kenny). Also in the race were Joe Williams and Joe Haungs (dressed as a Scarecrow). Joe Williams was hoping for a PR but came up just a bit short. He said he wasn’t looking forward to Sunday but thought he could drag himself out to Akron Falls… better him than me.

Later that evening as I was about to sit down for dinner I get an email alert on my phone. Normally I would have waited until after dinner, but I get a little paranoid the day before xc races so I checked it. And as the song goes, just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you (Yes I am aware Joseph Heller put that in a book first). The toll of working several overnight shifts in a row had finally caught up to Joe W and he wasn’t going to be able to race. We only had 5 masters runners including Joe scheduled to run. I’d already scramble to pull in 2 new masters runners for this race Rick Ostrander (pictured below) and Daniel Sackett (who also ran the Wineglass Marathon last weekend).  If the Masters team was to have any chance of winning the series we couldn’t take a 0 for this race, which meant back to back races it would have to be for me.

Rick Saves the Day!
Rick Saves the Day!

We had a 6 man open team and a 7 woman open team also racing, but sorry kids this particular post is all about the masters team. I will give a quick tip of the cap to Dave Rappleyea who seems to be very close to his old racing form and to Lauryn Recchia who ran a 5k PR at Scarecrow and came back to race this meet as well. You can see the results for all the teams at the end of the post.

Now for a quick history lesson. The Pete Glavin XC series is in its 25th season. In 14 of the last 16 seasons and for the past 9 seasons in a row the Genesee Valley Harriers have won the Male Masters Division. GVH has had a stranglehold on the Masters competition in Western NY for a generation, and nothing would make me happier than to break that grip.

Going into the race my hope for the team was to place no worse than 3rd. I had no idea what I had left in my legs, Derrick was fighting a cold, Dan had just race a marathon and Rick was a totally unknown commodity. The only person I knew was going to run well was Josh Williams and he didn’t disappoint, blasting past a GVH master runner in the final meters. No one else disappointed either. Derrick dragged me through the first 5k of the 6k course and held on as the 2nd masters finisher after I moved past him on the final uphill. Daniel edged out GVH’s 5th runner by 4 seconds, and Rick finished with what can only be called a ferocious kick.  After finishing 2nd by 3 points to GVH at the McQuaid race, we were revenged in Akron Falls beating them by 1 point!

More Beer. More Glory. And apples?
More Beer. More Glory. And apples?

We have put ourselves in a good position for the last 2 races. We have a 4 point lead and should have our full complement of masters runners for those final 2 races. I hear GVH is putting out an all points bulletin for wayward masters members for the USATF-Niagara Masters 8K Championship on November 2nd which is also the 4th race in the series. I would be shocked if that race doesn’t come down to a point here or there.  Despite what the GVH coach may be telling people, all we do is not sit around and drink beer.

Men’s Master

Road Kill – 1 16 6,4,6
GVH – 1 12 2,6,4
High Noon AC – 1 7 4,3
Syracuse TC – 1 5 3,2

Men’s Open

Syracuse TC – 1 16 6,6,4
GVH – 1 14 4,4,6
Road Kill – 1 9 3,3,3
Checkers AC – 1 3 1,2
Cornell Running Club – 1 2 2
Syracuse TC – 2 0 0

Women’s Open

GVH – 1 16 4,6,6
Checkers AC – 1 14 6,4,4
Syracuse TC – 1 9 3,3,3
Road Kill – 1 6 2,2,2
Checkers AC – 2 1 1

 

Overall Women Results Meet #3
Overall Men Results Meet #3
Team Women Results Meet #3
Team Open Men Meet #3
Team Masters Men Meet #3

YEAR MASTERS MEN CHAMPION
2013 Genesee Valley Harriers
2012 Genesee Valley Harriers
2011 Genesee Valley Harriers
2010 Genesee Valley Harriers
2009 Genesee Valley Harriers
2008 Genesee Valley Harriers
2007 Genesee Valley Harriers
2006 Genesee Valley Harriers
2005 Genesee Valley Harriers
2004 Checkers AC/Buffalo
2003 Genesee Valley Harriers
2002 Genesee Valley Harriers
2001 Genesee Valley Harriers
2000 Genesee Valley Harriers
1999 High Noon AC/Ithaca
1998 Genesee Valley Harriers
1997 Blade Runners/Batavia
1996 High Noon AC/Ithaca
1995 High Noon AC/Ithaca
1994 Blade Runners-Batavia
1993 Blade Runners/Batavia *
1992 Cats AC/Rochester *
1991 Syracuse Track Club *
1990 Cats AC/Rochester *
* denotes 3 person team