Deja Vu in Acushnet

It felt like old times at the 2003 Acushnet Road Race -- if by old times you meant the 2002 Acushnet Road Race -- the Moose Milers & Marathoners first competitive event as a team.

Once again Joann Mathews and Jason Eddy led the way. Joann repeated as champion and even broke her old course record with a time of 24:43. Jason chopped 14 seconds off his course record for last year, but was outgunner by GBTC's Marzuki Stevens.

Joann teamed up with Jennifer Bogan and Laura Trull to defend their 2002 team championship, with Jennifer running perhaps her best race ever, taking 2nd place in 25:02. Last year's #2 runner, Madalena Boudreau passed on the race this year to catch some rays in the Carribean.

Despite Jason's record-breaking run, our team of Jason, Jeff Reed, and Moatacim Hamcha, took 2nd in a close race with GBTC. Moatacim is on the way back after an 8-month layouff to recover from a 2nd place finish at the Jacksonville (Florida) Marathon last December.

Our rivalry with the Greater Boston Track Club continues as the combined times of our top three men and women was only 3 seconds faster. We plan to return in 2004 so that our women can go for the three-peat, while our men finally unseat GBTC from their throne. To do this we need a much stronger turnout from our SEMass crew, as well as from Moose Milers farther afield. This is especially true with the repeated close finishes of the past two years. We need to make sure we have a strong 4th runner in case the race comes down to a tiebreaker; and in case we have an injury during the race that would knock our team out of contention for the titles.

2 Jason Eddy 21:22

4 Jeff Reed 21:59

6 Moatacim Hamcha 23:14

12 Joann Mathews 24:43

17 Jennifer Bogan 25:02

29 Cheryl Theodore (M) 27:05

34 Robert Dowd (S) 27:49

35 Laura Trull 27:54

64 Woody Wilson (S) 30:32