Mar/Apr 2012 - Level Renner

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Rat Re-Issues Bennie’s Lunch and Tap Do you like the grainy photograph and text printed below? You better. It’s vintage Hockomock Swamp Rat. The graininess is amplified because you’re getting this retro cover and subsequent Bennie’s Lunch and Tap Race Info 2nd maybe even 3rd hand. No doubt Head Rat Peter Wallan him- self cut and pasted—I mean actually clipped and glued with his own two hands not with some fancy dancy computer—the picture and bill some 14 years ago and who knows from what yellowed paper he got the original. I tried to do the same with the race report from the 1998 Stu’s 30K (part of HSR’s notorious Grand Pricks Series) but I just couldn’t do it. The Rat’s signature 6 point Times New Roman was just too small and pocked. I couldn’t even read it when I tried copying it in and I have quasi-young eyes. Thus, no shortcuts. I retyped the piece and then searched endlessly for a font that 34
Rat Re-Issues 1998 Stu’s 30K would best replicate the IBM Selectric that Wallan purchased at least 20 years ago for $900. Below is the best I could do. Now the good thing about retyping an article is that you get to appreciate it all the more. The style and tone of the report fits perfectly with the race it- self. Raw. Edgy. Like salt on chafed skin. I love it. It’s what The Level wants to be. And how ‘bout some of them names? Some blasts from the past. Some I don’t think we’ve heard or seen since that fated race back in the winter of ‘98. A real testament to this “grinderoonie.” But some are still cranking: Gail (Heinrich) Martin and Harry Carter among them. I could go on and on about Stu’s, the below recap, and the fantastic lore of Bennie’s 10 Miler, but I’m out of space so you’ll just have to read and reflect for yourselves. BIG, BAD, UUG-LEEEEE STU’S 30K CROAKS 700+ BUT NOT JIM GARCIA (1:49.13) – POST (GFTC) SCORES BIG GPS GAIN FITZPATRICK IS FOURTH, HEINRICH RUMBLES OVER BABES, ROSS BLEEDS AND KESSLER GROANS CLINTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Aha! I have it! A cure for all those frostbitten yuppy Mount Everest Climbers. Let their chums come to scenic Clinton, Mass. and lay in some serious training miles on the Stu’s 30K course. Better still, let’s see them race this sucker. C’mon you day-glo wimps. I dare you! Talk about apoxia, oxygen starvation and vertigo. Cripes, even Sir Edmund Hilliary (no fancy equipment, just a superb athlete and not a yup) would have nosebleed on this savage killer of extreme magnitude. We almost had to get out the LL Bean official crampons to scale the killer hills at (ugh!) 17 and 18, and then there’s (of course) that miserable switchback grinderoonie of a nut buster at mile 8-9, an athletic sensation I haven’t had the pleasure to experience since the fecund summer of 1959 when I took a line drive directly in the macadamias in a high school baseball game. Yup, this Boylclint Tour-de-Wachusett will make your baby blues seep and will dull your sex drive. The best thing about this no-frills race is that it attracts only real runners. All hardcore, of all abilities. There are no complainers or whiners. We were all here simply for the challenge of a long race. This indeed is the philosophical equal of the monstrous Derry, NH 16 (but slightly easier). This is how distance running ought to be. This is actually how it was. Man, I wanna tell you that this is some kinda good sheeeeet here just up the street a bit from the old Bigelow Carpet Factory in bricky old Clinton, which has more class and history than any ten uppah-class ritzy suburb enclaves combined. How classy is this race? Even Ed and Bev Whitney (NMC) showed up to spectate. They’ve got nearly 100 combined years of service to the sport of distance running on their noble ledgers. Add Tom Hurley, Bobby Hodge, and Maine’s marvel Carlton Mendell and you’ve got so much class and history that you can choke on it. I’ll bet the ghost of Clarence DeMar was here, too. You bleed here. Mentally and physically. Fred Ross (Brattleboro, VT) looked like his poor nipples had been sandpaper-massaged at the finish. Several runners’ brogans seeped pale red, and Ruth Kessler (Burlington) uttered the best Stu’s 30K comment a half mile from the finish line…”arraaggghhhmmmff’…I couldn’t have put it any better myself. Don Lambert (Marlboro) had to walk the last three, Killer Miller (Plainville) hit the woods for a 2-minute pee-pee-wee-wee stop, Natick’s Chris Post indicated that his cold showed signs of turning to bulbar pneumonia, and Jane Goodman hit the sack before 8 p.m. after she got home to Dedham. But then, geez, there are guys like Jim Garcia (CMS) and Dermont Fitzpatrick (SoRR). They eat this stuff up like Mo eats dogs and burgers. Garcia buried the field and added to his GPS lead over the aching and nearly hors-de-combat Hank Gediman (pulverized at 50+ by the new HSR Jostein Pederson). Fitzpatrick copped 4 th and there is simply no truth to the scurrilous rumor that he once played hockey without a helmet under the alias Trevor (Skull) Hull from the Flin Flon Bombers of the Alberta Junior League. Speaking of bombers, can anyone beat Gail Heinrich? She’s making perfumed hash of the women’s GPS competition with only Cambridge barristette Erin Brown a threat. Had she not missed three races she’d be hanging on Garcia’s back like a cheap suit in a heat wave. But the overall women’s winner was Erin VanKeen of R.I. of whom nobody knew nothing except that she beat most of us, even Manny Arruda who won’t be a Clydesdale any more if he keeps this up. Whoa! Dark Cloud, whoa! Looking down on the list of Rats we find Jeff Gould racing his 12 th Stu’s. Dave Camire missing the old sub 7:00 days, Harry Carter creamin the 60+ Rats, Paul Powell (MSP) edging out Mike Sullivan (BPD) in the Rat Lawman Division, Bill Brown coming all the way from Vineyard, Rob Rose passing no-show Larry Kessler with 3 ½ GPS points, and Glenn O’Connor (SoRR) eschewing racing in favor of passing out water on the course. Smart guy except he took grief from Garcia for handing him the cup incorrectly. Post race found tired folk all over the school cafeteria totally ignoring Don Drewniak’s award ceremony. This is traditional. Nobody cares about winning anything. Stu’s 30K’ers have gone waaaay beyond that point. Food included Polar soda, bagels, and junky wing-dings and whoopie pies. Also traditional. Don’t like it? Tough. What is this? A race or a bleeping buffet? And what’s a rat race without a spandex comment? Suffice to say that women who run 30K are WOMEN, and women who run 5K are…well…girls. Later, there was migration to cozy Clinton watering holes, just down the same hill you climbed to the finish. Hey, is it safe to mix Rolling Rock with two Advils? I’ll have to ask Ed Dowling and Dave LeBlanc. Official Race Song: “Don’t think twice, It’s All About Fright,” Dylan, 1973. 35
Page 1: Under this Ground… New Balance Gr
Page 4 and 5: Editor’s Note Let’s start with
Page 6 and 7: Lane 2: Nutrition A Healthy Dish on
Page 8 and 9: Featured Race Gansett Marathon nice
Page 11 and 12: A Day in the Life of Robert Ciprian
Page 13 and 14: Blake Russell The Elites in the hea
Page 15 and 16: Side by Side Reno Stirrat Photo by
Page 17 and 18: The Dossier Files: Becky Hutchinson
Page 19 and 20: Greg Hammett at the 2010 Bay State
Page 21 and 22: Q and A w/ Greg Hammett The (Semi)E
Page 23 and 24: Lane 3: Commentary Get the Most for
Page 25 and 26: Lane 3: Commentary Deconditioning b
Page 27 and 28: Lane 3 Commentary Olympic Trials De
Page 29 and 30: New Balance Grand Prix New Balance
Page 31 and 32: New Balance Grand Prix they pushed
Page 33: Continued from page 25 therapy (PT)

Mar/Apr 2012 - Level Renner

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?