Groton Trail race review

Here's the brief run-down on the Groton Trail Race from Jerry De Zutter:

Mini-ponys in attendance (at least that I was aware
of): John Kinnee and yours truly.

Gun goes off and in the first two miles I feel pretty
good, suspiciously good, moving ahead of a few people.
Despite telling me later that he couldn't breathe
(hyperventilating) John steadily moves away from me
with a few other runners. ~mile4, I'm still feeling
good can't hear anyone behind me but no one
immediately in front either, see John at the end of a
long straight, other runners that were with him not in
sight, those guys must've dropped him, gee is John
coming back to me? ~mile 7, some tough terrain, I'm
going OK though, see young John at a place where the
trail doubles back on itself, he's still behind the
guys he had been running with but I realize I'm not
catching him and he looks to be running pretty well.
~mile 8.5, I'm not worried about young John anymore
because I can tell (more doubling back of the trail) a
few veteran trail runners are closing on me. Hold them
off though and finish 1:04 something for 9th place.
I'll take it (and the burger and Belhaven on tap at a
local pub after). As for young John, turns out he
lights the afterburners in the last 2 miles and blows
by the guys that were a bit ahead of him (Steve
Petersen and another fairly speedy trail runner, not
sure of his name) to post a 1:02 something, 6th (?)
place. Very strong race for John!