Looking back - 45 years ago

45 years ago (March 1981):  I closed out my junior year indoor track season with a tenth place finish (9:35.7) at the Eastern championships in Princeton NJ. Although it was a personal best, I was disappointed and noted that I “felt awful” during the race. In between indoor and outdoor track season I hit the roads for only the second (and third) time. I set a personal best at 5 miles and at 10 km, which is easy to do when you are running the distance for the first time! I finished 15th at the Shamrock 5m in Boston running 25:17 which was only good enough for third in the 18 and under category.  BMHS teammate John Dangora was one of the juniors ahead of me. Splits: 5:03/5:10/5:02/5:05/4:57. Two weeks later I ran the Lechmere 10km in Peabody ($3 pre entry & $4 day of) and took 12th place in 32:04. I out-leaned Steve Perkins (Danvers) for the junior category win and took home a GE AM/FM digital alarm clock that I still have. That is the oldest race prize that I kept. On the last day of the month I started the outdoor season with a PR of 4:31.6 for the mile in a dual meet against Haverhill. It was only good enough for 2nd place as the Hillies Tom hinds took the win in 4:28.

Peabody Lechmere 10km 03/28/81

1 Greg Meyer          NBTC 29:04

2 Dick Buerkle         NYAC 29:35

    Doug Sweazey     GBTC 29:55

3 Tim Donovan        NBTC 30:50

4 Jim Stronach        CTC    31:02

5 Gary Wallace        GBTC 31:05

6 Dean Kimball        UNH   31:12

7 Keith Brown                   31:13

8 Brad Hurst           31:22

9 Paul Swenson                 31:35

10 Stu Penn WSSAC         31:43

11 Don Thompson CTC      31:49

12 Dave Dunham    BMHS 32:04

13 Steve Perkins      DHS    32:04

14 Joe Catalano       BAA    32:04

15 Mark Kimball      BU      32:14

20 Patti Catalano     AW     33:19