Looking back July 1985

 Looking back 40 years (July 1985): I was training pretty hard during July of 1985 with weeks of 104, 90, 91, and 84 with a day off each week! raced for the (then) young Whirlaway Racing team which was managed by Dave Kazanjian over the summer of 1985. On a hot and humid 4th of July I headed to North Andover for a tough hilly 10km race.  After a slow opening mile of 5:18 I dropped under 5:00 pace to take a 61 second victory in 30:50. U-Lowell teammate Brian Moody took second in 31:51.  The race drew 450 finishers.

 

Sporting the Whirlaway Racing Team singlet

Five days later (07/09/85) I headed to Cawley Stadium for the GLRR weekly 2 mile series.  I ran from Billerica to the track (6 miles) then did another 2 miles on the track to finish my warm-up.  I took it out hard (hoping to take a shot at Bob Hodge’s CR 8:52) with splits of 66/66/67/69 and hit the mile in 4:28. I clocked another 4:28 for an 8:56 win.  Brad Hurst took second in 9:08.

I closed out the month at the Newburyport 10 mile (07/30/85) on a hot and humid Tuesday night.  I was hoping to run a low 49 (based on my earlier races) and went out for it hitting 5 miles in 24:36. This was my first attempt at 10 miles and I went in with rookie optimism hoping to run around 49 flat (from the presumption that a 24:30 wasn’t hard so two in a row should be manageable). After that I fell off the back of the pack and struggled in with a 5^th place 50:10