Paul elbows out teammate and former record holder at the start

April 4
Andover, MA
10 mile single track trail
Event Website
Coolrunning article

Paul Low takes the win with a course record:

"This was my forth run on the 'Rivah,' a trail race put on by former US mountain team members Dave "DD" Dunham and Steve "Petey" Peterson. The rivah course is five miles up the Merrimac River.   The first three miles are really fast (for trail running) with several step hills, stream crossings, and the like in the next two.   Then you turn around and do it again- this time with 200 runners coming toward you.

	Paul Low alone on the singletrack

Race day morning, it was cold and windy with a bit of rain. To make things worse, Dave came up to me before the start and said that he had raked the leaves off of the trail in the powerline section so if I didn't break the CR this year, I never would.   The race started and I got a really good position right off of the line going into the muddiest portion of the course, the first 50 meters.   I got there first but Kelli was not so lucky getting caught behind many, many runners as the race goes to singletrack in about ten strides.

By Three miles, I was on my own. I hit the turn-around in just over 28 minutes.   I knew that it would be difficult to negative split the Rivah.   Yes, the course goes up river on the way out but this is not enough to compensate for having to pass all of those people during the second half. With two miles to go, I knew that I was not going to be all that close to 56-flat; nevertheless, I still managed decent splits with a 5:01 final mile.   Upon finishing, I learned that I had broken the CR.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal but anytime that I can take down one of Dave's records it is a good day.

A happy course record holder