NETT Men Defend Andover Title, Women 3rd place team

(Photo Credit: Ted Norton)
The NETT men's team won its third straight title at the Andover Country Club Cross Country Race, while the women's team finished third overall, thanks in great part to a last minute addition (more on that later) and a couple very strong runs by our top Ponyettes.

The men's team was without its top two runners but still managed to hold off six other teams to win. All five scoring members of NETT were in the top 20 of the race.

Men were led by Dave H finishing 8th overall, with Young John Kinnee just a couple spots behind in 10th. Paul Y ran a PR on the course to score as our third man (fourth master in the race), while Toledo Joe also turned in a strong PR in the fourth NETT spot. And Frank KJ definitely didn't leave anything on the course in his first trip to Andover, finishing up the NETT scoring running very hard (I mean he looked like he was ready to explode at the finish--he knew there were points on the line for us!).

In a new twist, it was the first time NETT has fielded a women's team at Andover after having a men's team compete for five straight years now. The women's team was led by Adrienne Cyrulik, running for the first time at Andover, followed closely (as the photo will indicate) by Tina Wang with another strong performance. But the REAL Thanks of the day go to Toledo Joe's better half Kim for entering her FIRST EVER race to complete the NETT women's team and give them a third-place finish.

As usual, the post-race fare was beyond compare and the beer flowed foamy but frequent and free. We even met some new folks at the race. ("You guys are the fastest table we've ever sat at," they said after we all went up and got our awards!

NETT Thanksgiving Race results

A strong contingent of Mini Ponies came out to the Ayer Firefighters 5K this morning, with NETT taking spots 4,5,9,13&14 for the men and 3rd place for the women. Dave H took fourth on the 5K in 16:43, with Young John Kinnee, who was "defending his home turf" turning in a strong run, finishing fifth in 17:01. Paul Young kept asking "What about the next 23 miles?" after finishing his first non-marathon race in while in a strong 17:14 while Frank KJ and Jerry D-Z ran together in true NETT fashion helping push each other to places 13&14 in 17:42. So that made five NETT runners finishing within a minute of each other.

Tina Wang continued her strong finishes on the female side, taking 3rd place overall in the women's race, holding off a finishing surge by two women behind her to finsih in 20:12 (first in her age group).

After the Ayer race, Jerry's dad hosted his annual Harvard Turkey Trot fun run--quite an event. You've never seen such a big race of 99% relatives before. All of the above-mentioned runners ran together to finsih mid-pack in the run (some of us had to boogie before the touch football game, but would love to hear a report on that when available).

Meanwhile, over in Andover, Frank White surfaced at the ever-popular Feaster Five road race. Frank took 13th overall in 28:55. Nice work for a guy only a couple weeks post-NYC Marathon.

Did I miss anyone? If so, shoot me an email with the results!

See you all at the Andover XC Race Sunday at NOON.

Dmitry wins, Tina places at Norwood Turkey Trot; Paul wins masters at Breakheart

Dmitry once again notched a W in his belt Sunday with a win at the Norwood Turkey Trot. No one can trot like that Russian Rocket, that's for sure. Dmitry coasted through the 4-mile course in 20:53, well in front of second place.

Tina also ran at Norwood and finished third in her age group in 26:52. Yes, guys, that's 6:43 pace.
Tina's also furiously working on putting together a women's team for Andover next weekend too.

Meanwhile over in Saugus, Paul Young finished fourth overall and first master at the Breakheart Reservation 3-mile Turkey Trot. Paul finished in 16:43 for three miles on a hilly course. Great work Paul.


We'll look for more great NETT results on Thursday at the Ayer Fire Department 5K and next Sunday at the Andover Country Club 3.5 mile XC race.

NETT dominates the Deer Run, all over the Genesis Battlegreen, more....

NETT scored 1-4-6-7 at the Wachusett Deer Run this weekend. Dmitry Drozdov came in first in the five-mile race on Saturday, easily outpacing Gred Ward of CMS and Hunter Bennet Dagget of Framingham. Dave H was 4th, Dave M 6th and Young John Kinnee 7th in a gutsy race.

Dave M came back on Sunday to run the Veteran's 5K in Shrewsbury the next day finishing second there in 17:24.

Meanwhile over in Lexington on Sunday, NETT was all over the Genesis Battle Green 10K and 5K. Dmitry went for the double weekend victory in the 10K but was outdueled by one of the strongest runners in New England, John Mortimer. Dmitry finished second in 32:29, a PR for almost any of us!

Also running the 10K Tina Wang did fantastic, finishing in 42:10. (Photo of Tina tearing up the streets of Lexington)

In the 5K at Lexington, Rick Cleary ran a strong race to finish in 20:58 for 25th place ("One fat old guy you know won his age group in the 5K at Lexington too (didn't want the family to freeze through how long it would take me to do a 10K)."


And Deb Robertson ran a strong race to finish in 22:00, for 38th place overall out of more than 200 runners. Great Work Deb.

And rounding out Sunday, Frank White put in a great run at the NYC Marathon, finishing in 2:55 in the same year he had a new baby, graduated law school, took the bar exam and started a new law firm job....whew! Great stuff!

Jennifer's adventure racing team wins U.S. NATIONAL championships

Congrats to Jennifer Shultis' EMS Adventure racing team which owned the U.S. National Championships this past weekend in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Jennifer is the captain of Team EMS and both their three-person teams finished ahead of the rest of the field. Think about that--30 of the best adventure racing teams in the country get together and her two finished 1,2....truly impressive. And keep in mind, Jennifer is not a full-time racer or some trust-fund baby. She's got a 9-5 job just like the rest of us.


Congrats Jennifer! (photo of her at 2005 nationals, I believe??)

Read the November RICK REPORT

Here's the latest updates from our DEEPLY embedded BAA spy Rick Cleary:

"Congrats to the NETT team on many excellent recent results, and very good stories. I especially enjoyed reading about the Green Mountain Marathon which I've run several times; and which in 1982 (back when it was in August and went for a complete loop of South Hero Island, rather than the current out and back in October) I thought I was going to win. I was in the lead from 13 to 22 that year but then remembered that I wasn't very good and finshed third.

On Sunday 10/8 I did the Wayland XC Challenge at Wayland High, alma mater of Alberto Salazar. His picture was prominently displayed several places. I snuck into the top half of the field by running seven minute pace on a very pleasant and reasonably challenging course. I got beat by a kid who might have been 10 but might have been 4, certainly the smallest person I've lost to in my adult running career. I saw him at the start and thought, "Awww, look at that little kid going out too hard ... he's so CUTE!" Then I noticed I wasn't catching him. I eased by him at the mile mark and figured he was gone for good. The second mile was a very hilly and treacherous section of dirt trail and soft sand pit. Near the end of it I heard somebody gaining on me. I was stunned when this little 60 pounder scooted by and I worked very hard to keep up. I was just about back to even when we turned a corner and faced a fairly short but VERY steep hill. Much better for 60 pounds than 200. On the ensuing downhill I made up most of the ground but he was tougher around the track to the finish.

The big running news here came from my much better half, who returned to racing after over five years off for various pregnancies and the like. Ann did the Tufts 10K for women and zipped around at 10:30 pace, just missing top half in the master's group. Not bad for her longest run in six years. Generally her being excited about running is good for my training, so let's hope it rubs off on me. It was sort of fun to take my turn being the support guy and spending much of the hour Ann was running putting the recently potty trained Eddie into and out of most the roughly 100 outhouses near the start. "

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rick that was Eli Bucher, son of race director Eric Bucher. Eli did our race in Carlisle last year and is certainly no regular "KID" by any stretch of the imagination (I think he's a Kenyan in caucasian drag). Great run and as always, entertaining story.