Looking back - Feb 1990

 35 years ago (Feb. 1990): I headed to Ohme Hochi Japan on what was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was the U.S. representative to the race which is the sister race of the Boston marathon (I was the top NE finisher in 2:22:03 the year before). The trip was a lot of fun, but the race did not go as well as I’d hoped, mostly because I went out a bit too hard. I did end up with a personal best of 1:37:21 but had almost run that fast on the brutally hilly Stu’s 30km course. I finished 17th which was the same place I’d finished at Boston. I ended up beating 10,974 people which is the most I’ve ever beaten in a race and is nearly twice the number I beat in Boston (back then Boston only had 5,000 finishers!). My splits were: 31:06, 32:34, 33:41. This was also the trip where I did two runs in the same day, more than 24 hours apart (International Date Line).

    

 

02/25/1990:  The first (then called Lifetime) Baystate marathon was held in Lowell.  It was cold and a bit snowy, which may have been the reason it was moved to the fall (and was actually held twice in 1990).  I ran the race as a workout with my Greater Lowell Road runner teammates, Art Demers, Dave Camire, and Don Alvey.  I recall that Artie wanted to bail after the first loop even though we were going slower than we would on a “normal” GLRR long run.  We hit the half in 1:27:10 then started picking up the pace.  It was pretty funny for us as we caught people and they’d suddenly lose four places.  As the miles rolled by, we moved steadily into the top 10.  With a couple of miles to go we could see Scotty in the distance, and he was coming back to us.  With about a mile to go he looked back, saw us, and upped the pace.  Our group crossed the line in a four way tie for 4th place in 2:51:00.  Great fun!