Granby Charter Day Cross-Country Races

RACE RESULTS<= o:p>

Granby Charter Day Cross-Country Races=

Sunday, June 11, 2006= at 10:00 am

1-Mile XC for= kids 12 and under

It was a near perfect day for cross-country racing in = Granby at the Charter Day festivities. Dry, somewhat sunny, an= d not too hot. Kids 12 and under were up first. They followed a pace bike ridden by Granby cross-country standouts, Felicia Cordeiro and Jesse Callahan. Parents were allowed to run with the younger kids. The course was flat, but not fast. It was a difficult mile. The first three-quarters of it is on dirt roads and grassy fields. Th= en the kids ducked into the woods, where they had to follow the orange marking paint on the ground through a long stand of pines trees. Footing was on soft pine needles, but it slows a young runner down. Then they emerged, and turn= ed right onto a 100 meter straight-away and around one last turn to the finish, amid loud applause from friends, family, and onlookers.

Tyler Griswold, 12, won the mile, closely followed by = Ryan Dean, 12, and last year’s 3^rd place runner, Alex Nielan. N= ext came a block of girls. Siobhan Galloway, 11, Savannah Bernardin, 12, Fiona Bernardin, 9, and Erica Dean, 8, all came out onto the stretch within the n= ext minute. Our fast 12-year-olds will have to graduate to the 5K next year, but that leaves no dearth of fast young runners in the Granby Charter Day 1-Mile Cross-Country Race for kids 12 and under!

5K XC for adu= lts

When the kids finished, the adults were off on the 5K cross-country race. Once around a field full of tractors, they immediately = had to clamber up a steep hill that might have been 100 meters, but felt like 2= 00. This is true cross-country. This is the same course the race director, Bill Dean, who happens to be the boys’ cross-country coa= ch for Granby, designed for his Hi= gh School runners, and it’s not easy. It runs though all the fields the = kids’ race does, but has a couple of grueling miles in= the woods, with some roller-coaster hills, the kind on which you don’t attempt to pass the closest rival in front of you. You just grit your teeth= and hang on.

The pack took off quickly from the start, led by former Granby Cross-Country runners Zachariah Larose and Brendan Dean. The two battled it out up the first steep hill and Brendan Dean emer= ged onto the field first. However, he was quickly swallowed up by the pack, now being led by Mike Morris, Michael Brouillette, and Tim Kranz. For the rest of the race, the three ran closely together and put a safe distance between their group and the next. They finished in that order, with times of 18:07, 18:29, and 18:50, respectively. It = was more than a minute and a half before the fourth-place runner, Steve Lambardo, crossed the finish line in 20:18.

The first female finisher was Dawn Roberts in 11^{t= h} place with a time of 23:07. F= ollowing only a little more than a minute behind were the second and third-place fem= ale finishers, Elaine Skawski, and Mary Mancuso, finishing in 16^th a= nd 17^th place, with times of 24:21 and 24:40. These times indicate = that our top three female finishers all ran faster than 8-minute-mile pace! For = this grueling cross-country course, that is a remarkable accomplishment!

It was a doubly-hard race day for twelve-year-old runn= er Savannah Bernardin, who not only ran in the kids’ 1-mile race (and finished fifth!), but then decided to give the 5K course a try! <= st1:place>Savannah finished the 3.1-mile race in a time of 31:36, earning her 48^th place and making her the toughest pre-teen of the day!

The weather was great and so was the turnout this year= at the Granby Charter Day Cross-Country Races! This year’s race was our largest 5K race to date, and we are thankful for every athlete who particip= ated and every spectator who cheered. Come back next year and be part of the fun, and part of the run!