New England Cross Country Championships

Franklin Park, Boston -- November 6, 2016

By John Barbour

                What, in any given year, is the best day of running in New England?  Patriot’s Day?  The New Bedford Half-Marathon?  Some would say it’s Baystate Marathon day (though many from GLRR might claim the day after). From this angle, though, we’re hard-pressed to argue for anything but the Sunday of the USATF-NE Cross Country Championships in Franklin Park.  It’s a major championship.  It’s cross country.  It’s historic Franklin Park.  And of course it’s also the equally historic Doyle’s afterwards.  In short, it’s pretty much the best of everything.

                Open and Masters women (that is, women of all ages) race the 6-kilometer course together – 6K, you ask?  That’s the standard distance for women at national and international championships, and so it is at the association championship.  We’ll cut to the chase and report that Kara Haas smoked the course in 22:45, good for 30^th place overall (the top 20 percent of a very competitive field) and easily the #1 Master.  Behind Kara, Katherine Kulig (103^rd, 25:56) made her cross country debut and Jill Trotter (110^th, 26:22) was #7 Master.  Next came #4 Senior Maureen Pellgrini (27:27), Libby Often (28:01), Liane Pancoast (28:36, #8 Senior), and Mary Casey-Gorman (32:23).  Team-wise, the Master/Senior-heavy Open team scored 301 (5 scorers) for 11^th place, the Masters (3 scorers) 20 for third, and Seniors (also 3) 28 for fourth.  Hoo-dogies!

                Okay: GLRR’s “growing edge” for some years now has been its men’s Open team.  Too many promising younger chickens seem to be wooed towards ostensibly greener pastures once they attain a certain level of proficiency.  They usually find out otherwise but be that as it may, it’s also tough to crack the fall-marathon-vs.-cross country barrier for many.  And thus it came to pass that once again GLRR fielded no entrants in the Open men’s 10K race.  Hear this, you marathoners: next year!

John and Chris with some great teamwork.

                And thus the Y-chromosome banner was left to be flown by those with fewer and fewer chromosomes of any kind.  But the old guys did just fine, thank you.  In the Masters (40-plus) 8K race the stellar Mark Reeder (40^th, 29:15, 9^th Senior) led the way despite being hampered by knee problems for several weeks.  Sometime borg-mate John Barbour finished one place and one second behind to claim the Veterans’ crown, while Chris Hancock was right there in 29:20.  EJ Hrynowski (31:03) came next, then Peter LaGoy (33:17), Keith O’Brien (33:18), and Matt Story (33:44) in quick succession.  The long green line was completed by #2 Veteran Ken Goodin (34:18), new harrier Tim Hagerty (36:30), John Goodwin (39:23), 70-plus runner-up Denny LeBlanc (41:31) and the irrepressible Frank Gorman (56:01).

Team-wise, the Masters placed sixth with 182 points, Seniors third out of six (81), and the Veterans, well, the Veterans won again.

                On to Tallahassee and the National Club Championships!