2008 Roxbury Race #14

Garrett Derringer Returns

Shafer wins women's race

    Garrett Derringer returned to Roxbury after being away for several years and showed the field his heels.  The tenth grader from Ocean County, New Jersey took off gracefully from the start and quickly built a 15 yard lead.  At about half way, though, he'd been joined by someone (Ray Fico?  Jim Lee?  They were so far ahead of me I couldn't tell), and for a little while it looked close.  Garrett had an excellent second half, though, and pulled away to win by almost half a minute with a time of 5:17.

    Old timers will remember Garrett's dad, Keyless Bob Derringer, and the many excellent and exciting races he had several years ago against Mike Abraham.  Keyless finished 35 seconds behind Garrett in 4th place, 5:52.

    Mary Shafer edged Lisa Andrews by six seconds to take the women's crown, 6:23 vs 6:29.  They finished 10th and 13th overall in a field of 47.

People    

   The best thing about the Roxbury Mile is that so many people bring their families.  Tom McNulty brought a tribe of SIX.  Ryan and Kevin were the oldest, and they both beat Tom. Meanwhile, Tom ran with four-year old Ian and his wife Maura ran with ten-month old Erin.  The six McNultys were over 12% of the entire field.  We had a total of 14 first-time-this-year runners.

    Joe Mendes had a team of four.  He ran with Catherine and Angelica, ages 9 and 14, while his wife Alissa ran with the McNulty tribe.

    All the Thoennessens ran together.  Andrea began her comeback with a 7:22, edging Kara and Kurt by three seconds.

    Sharp-eyed readers of the Newlyweds page of the News-Times may have noticed our old friend Jon Chesto, aka "Ishmael" recently tied the knot.  Congratulations to both, and we hope he'll bring her around to meet us sometime.

    Chuck "he has tenure now" Rocca clobbered the Fossil for the first time this week.  People who care about such things have watched the gap between them gradually shrink from nearly a minute a mile late last year, to just ten seconds a mile two weeks ago, to a two-and-a-half second whipping this week.  Congratulations, Chuck.

Vermont City Marathon Results: (online at http://www.runvermont.org/)

Jeff Sheldon - 21st place overall - 2:46:29

Brian Vanderheiden - 144th place overall - 3:11:05

Jay Seney - 374th place overall - 3:31::40

Entered, but not in the results: Mike Abraham, Pat Viklund, Jean Poodiack and Bob Poodiack

Brian Vanderheiden sent us this report of his race: (I put it in Green because he was running in the Green Mountain State.

Well Ed....you dared me to negative split, but I didn't heed your advice.  I had planned to run the first half in 1:29 and try to hold that pace until 20, see how the legs felt at that point, and then shoot for 3 hours.  It went through the first couple miles right on pace, ran a few fast miles due to the downhill undulation in the course, and then got back on pace until halfway.  I approached the hill at 15 miles (which wasn't that bad really...it's certainly no Chalybes or even Ranney) and was starting to tire a bit, but knew the course was fairly flat after that point.  My pace had dropped off some between 13 and 20, but then I started the slow slide into the "Jungle".  I call it the "Jungle", cause at that point in the marathon, you're usually disoriented a bit...your legs are screaming....and you're trying to figure a way to get out of there.  Unfortunately, there is only one route to the finish.  By 22 Miles...I was running over a minute slower per mile than the first half of the race...and getting slower with each step.  My left hamstring started to cramp around 23...and the right one around 25.  I didn't walk...as that would only get me to the finish even slower.  You start to reason with yourself why the heck you are running 26.2 miles in the first place.  Anyway, I learned an awful lot about the marathon in this race...I rolled the dice a bit and rolled craps.  I'll be back and training even harder for the next one.  Below are my splits for your observation, advice, and laughter.

7:10 (slight uphill) 6:38 (downhill) 6:35 (same) 6:20 (a little fast, but downhill) 6:50

6:50, 6:51, 7:03 (slight uphill) 6:50, 6:39 (slight downhill)

6:57, 6:53, 6:55, 7:03, 7:14

7:35 (hill) 7:09, 7:16, 7:17, 7:31

7:43, 7:50, 8:16, 8:30, 8:36

8:42, 1:44 (.2)

In addition...Jeff Sheldon had a great marathon...ran the first half in just under 1:20 and then slowed down a bit...but finished with a 6:15 last mile and new PR for the marathon for him.

      The Roxbury Races are now listed on the Internet both on RunningInTheUSA and on HiTekRacing.com.  For information contact Bob Lewis at bwlnm (at) aol (dot) com, or at 203 240 0162.

Last week's results        Next week (when available)

Current points standings

    There's a bit of a point rearrangement this week as Lou Denaro missed a well-attended race so he could do some training for his new job.  This paved the way for the opportunistic vulture, Ed Sandifer, to scavenge his way into first place in the Prestigious Roxbury Points Race.  Lou dropped to second place, and Dan Lynch, the only other runner above 600 points so far this year, sits third.

    This week's winner among the women, Mary Shafer, also leads in points, 14th overall.

    Three people fell from the Top Ten.  Matt Capiello, Steve Haas and Joe Whelan all missed the race, and were replaced in the Top Ten by Scott Benjamin, David Mariani and Chuck "he has tenure now" Rocca.  Complete details are below.

       In the table below, runners who have not missed a race yet this year are marked with a *.  Rookies, those running their first Roxbury race of the season, are marked with an "R", and people reaching 100-point milestones are marked with a C.  Other symbols and doodads may be added later in the season.