Saturday, August 27, 2005 – 4 miles cross country at UC Santa Cruz. A pleasant sunny morning, beautiful redwoods, intimate trails and near nude guys and gals frolicking. What more could one ask? Even the mile climb at the start had flatter portions to help recovery from the three or four steep pitches.
Thanks to a turnaround at about mile 1.5, I can even give an account of the front runners as they returned. For that matter, I strategically positioned myself so that I could see almost the entire field as they returned! Well there isn’t much of an account, they went by so fast and so numerously, it was just a blur. I did see some tall, lanky, gazelle cruising effortlessly, well in front of a pack of hounds. The results suggest that it was Steven Springhorn, a 23 year old from Sacramento. He ran a 20:19. I think I remember hearing the cheering – I was about 1 miles back at the time. But then again, he might have gotten caught and been one of the three guys with the same times at 10 seconds back: Eric Mencarini, 25 of Sacramento; Scott McClennan, 28 of Mountain View, and; Jared Scott, 22 of Davis. Another ten seconds back was 25 year old Tylor Graff of Los Gatos.
Full race results are at – http://pausatf.org/data/2005/XCSCRUZ2005.html. Somewhere around the middle of the 140 guys, Spartans began to appear. We remain short in the youth department, so our 40’s guys, Dave and Nick, who aren’t all that young, finished 32nd and 41st out of 45 forty year olds. In the fifties we had for guys – just enough for a full team. Unofficially, they came in second. The “what if” for the week is that if only one more of our faster guys had been there, we could have taken first. At least we had Sal there who led the charge and Cisco who made sure the team was filled.
In a switch from last week, when the 50’s team was pretty solidly trounced, this week the 60’s team was trounced while the 50’s guys were slugging it out for the front. This week we got third. No “what if’s” this time. It’s pretty hard to win when the Pacific Striders put on a show and sweep the first three places, 2:24 to 1:50 ahead of Bill Bengiveno who finished 4th to lead our Spartans charge.
It’s looking like in both the 50’s and 60’s, our teams can get third places for the season – if we field teams for our six designated races. FIRST place MAY be possible – if we run in ALL the races and other teams miss a couple. For example, in the 60’s, the Pacific Striders have top runners, but like us, they appear to have little depth. If we have more dependability and dedication, we could beat them. So…
Who would like to help the cause and run this Saturday, September 3rd, way up north in Windsor? This is a long trip, so car pooling is desirable. Please call or e-mail me promptly so we can organize the team involvement.
In the ladies race, Spartan Susan lead our charge. She was right in front with the leaders! Check it out in the pics to be posted later this week at our web site – gospartans.org. As the race progressed, she dropped back. But I’ll bet it was fun while it lasted. There are several other pis to be posted. In one we were able to include our ENTIRE cheer squad – Jan, Carmine and Teri. Another includes the complete Spartans development team – Christian Sanchez.
Jerome Woehl
jeromewoehl@yahoo.com
408 230-0689 Cell
WOMEN 40’s
1 Hu, Susan – 32:50; 2 ??; 3 ???; 4 ????; 5 ?????
MEN 40’s
1 Woodruff, David – 26:03; 2 Butterfield, Nick – 29:01; 3 ???; 4 ????; 5 ?????
MEN 50’s
1 Martinez, Salvador – 27:22; 2 Radigan, Steve – 29:03; 3 Sanchez, Art – 29:18; 4 Verduzco, Francisco – 34:42
MEN 60’s
1 Bengivino, Bill – 28:39; 2 Leno, Fabela – 30:16; 3 Woehl, Jerome – 31:11