Busa Bushwhack

[Cort Cramer]

Congrats to Rich "Too Tall" Person on his overall W yesterday at the Busa Bushwhack! Let's hear about it, Rich!

[RPerson]

Thanks man.

The Busa Bushwhack is put on in honor of the Greater Framingham Running Club's own Rich Busa. Rich just turned 81 a couple days ago. He's run something like 140 marathons, enough 100 milers to make you sick, and is a multi-time age group national snowshoe racing champ. If there was anyone you could hope to be like when you're 81, it's Rich. So anyways, it's hit or miss if I can make this race every year due to football for the kids, but the stars aligned and I was free that morning. My warmup consisted of being a parking lot attendant and my expectations were low since I've done I think 3 run training days in the past 2 months. Last year I ran this with some kind of tear in my calf and I made it worse which put me down for two months. Better than last year seemed like a good goal

The start goes about 1/4 mile on pavement and funnels down to a 1 body wide trail followed by a 1 body wide gate. I told Cort to follow me because I wanted nothing to do with the bottleneck. I figured I'd just get through there then settle in. I think I hit the gate around 10th and started to judge how I felt. Now I should mention that this event has a 10 miler and a 5.3 miler that start together. There's some studs who run the 10 so you're never sure who's up front for the first couple miles. Regardless, I was passing guys easily going up the first long climb and didn't feel like I was overdoing it so I decided then I was going for it. By the time we hit the pipeline trail climb I was 5th on the trail, but 1-4 were out of sight. I dialed way back on the climb so I didn't blow up and was rewarded with somebody catching me shortly after. We hit the split for the 10 vs. 5.3 and he stayed with me so now it was on. He asked who was up the trail and I told him either 4 or nobody because I didn't see which way that group went. He apparently wanted to find out and proceeded to gap me by 5 seconds. On the way back we saw a couple course marshals and photogs and I was asking them if anyone else came by. They confirmed it was just us so now it was catch him or settle for second. I wasn't closing it down on the trails so I figured I'd try one last push when we came back out to the pavement and see what happened. And then he stopped...

I came out of the trail and found the guy standing there. He says "Are you doing the 10 or the 5?" "Five" I mumbled and he just sort of looked exasperated. My guess is he was supposed to be in the 10 and really had his heart set on it, but missed the split. He must have gone back in to try and find it and I was on my own. In the last stretch I asked one more time if anyone else had come by and they said no and that they couldn't even see the next guy. I got to cruise in and give a little salute across the line. The 10 is clearly the "A race" at this event and if those guys did the 5 I'd be toast. Regardless, it's been years since I got to enjoy the top spot at a running race so I'll take it. I was about 3 minutes faster than last year so that's good too.

Congrats too to Cort and Jeff Lippincott for showing their willingness to lace em up too. Cort probably would have beaten me if I had done the 10. If you have even a morbid curiosity in trail running, this is one to get to next year.