Pub Queen Willard Almost Snags CR at Doyle’s 5M
A typically schizophrenic weather day at Doyle’s for the
kick-off to NER Pub Series XVI. A tease of sun and warmth quickly replaced by
clouds and a cold, blustery wind by race start at 11:00.
A champion emerged from the ubiquitous black & gold
Somerville RR tent in the form of Jacob
Barnett (25:48) while past Pub Series co-champ TJ Unger of HFC placed 3rd and defending champ Lee Danforth (HFC) arrived 5th.
On the women’s side, defending Pub Queen Lyndsay Davenport was dominant, running
a 5:40 pace to post up in 28:20, just 6-seconds off Caroline Bjune’s CR from
2008. However, Lyndsay took a cortisone shot four days before, is waiting for
MRI results and has a cranky knee that might spell meniscus (plus she’s set to
run Boston).
In other words, Pub veterans Sarah Phillips and Holly
Madden (5-6 at Doyle’s) could be sitting pretty. Who knows, it’s early. One
record was broken on the day as long-time Pub Series stalwart Dave Pember, 70, crushed Denny
LeBlanc’s year-old 70+ record of 38:21 by over a minute (37:10).
The 70+ men’s division is now so viciously competitive that
we’ve expanded the scoring to the top 6.
A word on the Ramble (the next Pub Series race on April 28)
ÛÓ As part of the US Masters 10K Championship, the elite age-groupers are going
off about 3-minutes before everyone else.
Times will be merged, however, so that’s how the scoring
will be done. We’re not expecting bus loads of age-groupers to descend on
Dedham, but there’ll be more fast folks that usual, for sure. We could say
we’re not going to let any elites displace Pub followers, but we don’t really
know who’s in or out of the Series until after the 3rd race, so displacement
(as per usual) will be the name of the game.
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