With the spring weather finally arriving here in New England, it’s time to shift the road racing into full gear. The New Hampshire Grand Prix Series did just that last Sunday with a trip to Dover, NH for the Red’s Shoe Barn 5 Miler.
Fronting the race on the men’s side early on was Gate City Strider Jake Wormald with Gate City (and high school) teammate Steve Hammar giving chase. After leading the first couple miles Hammar caught up to Wormald and pushed the pace. Steve eventually wound up breaking away for the win in 26 minutes 16 seconds with Jake the runner-up in 26’45. This is the 2nd NH Grand Prix race Hammar and Wormald have finished 1,2 in – they were the top two at the series opening Team Earley Leprechaun Leap 5k on March 12th, but in reverse order as Wormald took the W that day. Cruising in the for the 3rd and 4th spots was Jim Johnson (26’59) and Matt Garfield (27’12).
For the women, it was Upper Valley Running Club’s Mary Peters battling it out with California resident Lisa Miller and Millennium Running’s Abbey Wood. After a comfortably hard opening few miles, Peters opened things up and arrived to the finish as the first female, breaking the tape with a 31 minute, 28 second performance. Miller would pull through as the runner-up in 31’56 (an astounding result for 51 years young). Abbey Wood finished strong for 3rd (32’45) with Upper Valley’s Megan Miller 4th in 33’11.
Despite a biking mishap trying to get around on the course, our video guy Mike Giberti was still able to grab some solid footage at the start, 4 miles, and finish. Our apologies to Steve Hammar. He was a little too quick and we didn’t make it back to the finish in time to capture the winning moment on camera!
Check out some cool race photos from MaineRunningPhotos as well
Full results and NH Grand Prix scoring courtesy of Granite State Race Services
