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GBTC at the 2006 National Cross-Country Championships

Coach Tom Derderian
December 9, 2006
Results
See pictures by Junyong Pak, see pictures by Bruce Davie, and see pictures from Track and Field Photo Magazine of Liz Hayden, Emily Raymond, Laura Hayden, Liz Kelly, Jen Lee, Wendy Newsham, Brad Kozel, and John Blouin.

Scruffy guys congregated in the hotel lobby dealing important little items out of plastic bags. They looked like drug dealers, but they traded spikes of half inch for 3/4 inch and talked about Pacific storms and mud in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on December 9th. A record 42 men's teams and 28 women's teams came to race to decide which were the better cross-country racing clubs in the USA. Two men's teams and three women's teams came from Boston.

The GBTC women came without last year's team leader Maegan Chaggaris and without season leader Allison McCabe. In fact an impressive number of former GBTC runners who now live in the Bay Area came to wish our team well. Helena Kimball, Julie McGee and Melissa Leier Nestel, who were on the GBTC national team in Portland, Oregon, in 2004, and Katie Wasilenko who ran for GBTC in the Club Nationals in Greensboro, NC, greeted our team and offered precious hospitality. Former GBTCer Marzuki Stevens showed the GBTC runners all the best spots in San Francisco for tiramisu and other things. GBTC star from the 1970s Scotty Graham who now lives in California greeted us warmly and plans to zoom out for the club party on Saturday. Men's team leader Mike Pieck and our women's team, led by fall marathon racers Emily Raymond and Laura Hayden, faced teams filled to overflowing with talent.

The BAA women who amount to a Greater New England club with centers in Providence, RI, and New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, as well as Boston came with full power ready to churn through the mud generated by the waves of rain showers blowing in off the ocean with the big west coast breakers booming on the beach at the end of the park.

Emily Raymond with her tradmark colored elastic bands bunching her hair into dozens of knobs on her head zoomed out with the slip-sliding pack. She dared not look at anything but the ground as she hurtled over it. The course took the runners across a long field to a turn and a rise onto the muddy track around a polo field and back to finish 2 kilometers curving behind the start/finish line. Spectators had the sight of colorful runners splashing along the sides of a green field in opposite directions under a gap in the overcast marine air that allowed bright sun to spill onto the wet scene. The next 4 km loop took the runners up through eucalyptus groves and winding down past gnarly wind-whipped west coast pines on paths lined with bright green grass. The technicolor course greatly livened the spirits of New Englanders preparing for a cold, gray winter. The rest of the GBTC women battled the thick pack of fighting women. GBTC runner Liz Kelly took bleeding spike wounds from other runners and self-inflicted abrasions from her own shoe against her calf during scuffles on the slick. turns. None of our runners fell on the log jumps.

Early in the men's race along the polo field a shout went out, "Pole! Pole!" but at least one man received a thigh-long gash from the unseen metal pole. GBTC's Ted Breen who had run 6th for the team last year at the Nationals in Rochester, NY eeked ahead of team leader Mike Pieck to finish first for the GBTC men's team. After the race the entire men's team ran to the ocean and Ted and Junyong Pak jumped in.

I had a good time with Emily's baby Bruce on my shoulders and with the bright splendid runners on our teams. Back at the meet hotel an old guy who had seen me with a member of our women's team asked, "So, how did your granddaughter do?"

Next year's Nationals will be December 8th in Westchester, Ohio, near Cincinnati.

Tom

It was good to see that our friends at BAA won the women's championships.

Out of 28 teams
20.   545  Greater Boston Track Club - A       (  23:17  1:56:21)
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  1     37    502 Emily Raymond         24 24   21:58
  2    114    503 Laura Hayden          26 26   23:17
  3    116    500 Elizabeth Kelly       22 22   23:21
  4    131    501 Jennifer Lee          24 24   23:42
  5    147    504 Mary Siegrist         26 26   24:03
  6   (190)   506 Wendy Newsham         39 39   28:14

out of 42 teams
32.   862  Greater Boston Track Club - A       (34:43  173:33)
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  1    128    507 Edward Breen          25 33:36
  2    131    512 Michael Pieck         32 33:43
  3    177    510 Ryan Aschbrenner      29 34:31
  4    193    509 Junyong Pak           28 35:05
  5    233    508 Brad Kozel            27 36:38
  6   (237)   511 John Blouin           32 36:48