Northfield Mountain
Third race in the La Sportiva GoLite USATF NE Mountain Circuit
June 10
Dave Dunham writes:
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I believe Dmetri made the Russian olympic team in the SteepleChase, and might have run in the 8:20's at Iowa State. He has leg speed. He pulled away from Paul in the fast downhill 6th mile which Paul ran in 4:18!
Weather was excellent with temps in the 60's and 100% humidity. The course drains very well and was in great shape. The first mile climbs 200' and there was a pack of Dmitry, Paul, Matt Pellitier (a 2:22 marathoner), Ben Nephew, Greg Hammett, and Dan Verrington. Dmitry and Paul broke away in the 2nd mile which climbs 400' and stayed together in the third mile that climbs another 250'. They were dead even at 4M. Pellitier was alone in third and Nephew/Hammet were deadlocked. Joe Shairs had caught Verrington and I was in 9th just a couple of seconds behind teammate Jim Pawlicki. The last 2.5 miles drops like crazy, but the trail was in excellent shape. None of the course is technical and even with the incredible amounts of rain we've had it drained quite well.
At 5.5 miles Paul and Dmitry had only a step seperating them. Paul said he needed a technical section as he was all out and just couldn't quite stay with Dmitry. Hammet and Nephew also continued right to the finish with Ben four seconds back. Dan V took top 40+ honors finishing 7th overall. I was pretty happy with my result and staying so close to Dan. CMS put seven in the top 12. Suzy West (runner-up and top 40+ at Pack last week) was the women's champ, beating Abby Woods by just over 1 minute. Suzy seemed quite pleased as she had been sick all week, she actually carried a hydration pack due to her illness.
Dmitri could be a surprise at Mt Washington as he will be running it his first time.
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