CMS placed teams in the top four in all seven age and sex divisions in the opening race of the 2003 USATF-New England Grand Prix series, the Law Enforcement Half-Marathon in Wakefield, Mass. held on March 9th. Runners were blessed with a relatively warm day but faced cruel headwinds over the second half of a course that was mercifully flattened compared to that of 2001, the last time the race hosted a GP series event. 

The open men - stripped of their former supremacy by age and injuries and forced to rely almost exclusively New Hampshirites for their salvation - placed third among 27 teams, well in arrears of a victorious quintet from the resurgent BAA but only eleven seconds behind runner-up Whirlaway. The outcome was never in doubt, as the lead pack of ten or so mutual wind-dodgers that formed at about the two-mile mark, collectively battled elderly pedestrians, errant motorcycle cops and path-clogging wanderers over the next half-hour around the Breakheart Reservoir, and dissolved at seven miles always held at least three or four BAA singlets. Kevin Beck (Concord, N.H.), the race co-leader at 12K along with eventual winner and former CMS member/current Dirigo TC member/forgiven turncoat Byrne Decker (Yarmouth. Me.), wound up seventh in 1:09:56. Following were 40-year-old Dan Verrington (Bradford, Mass.; 14th, 1:10:36), Alan Bernier (Newmarket, N.H.; 21st, 1:11:45), Fergus Cullen (Rochester, N.H.; 28th, 1:12:07) and Rich Bolt (Manchester, N.H.; 36th, 1:13:19). 

Barbara McManus (Worcester, Mass.) led the open women to a fourth-place finish by placing 6th overall in a time of 1:23:06. Nikki Kimball (Elizabethtown, N.Y.) ran 1:27:21 while Veronica Kanga, also of Worcester, ran 1:27:57. 

For reasons known only to USATF-NE, open men's teams comprise five half-marathon scorers, while open women's team include only three; had five women counted a la the men, the efforts of Kim Duclos (1:28:12) and Karen McGahie (1:31:03) would have vaulted CMS over the GBTC and into third.

 Elsewhere and more briefly, the men's veterans (60-and-over) team stood as the only same-club trio of superannuated men in New England with the gumption to show up, and so George Kasierski, Peter Orni, and Jim Daley strode away with first place in that division. 

The women's seniors (50-and-over) team took second on the strength of great runs by Mary Ryczek, Linda Usher and Laura Beckwith. Led by Verrington and helped by Ernie Brake and Dave Oliver, then men's masters (40-and-over) placed third, as did its seniors threesome of Jerry Learned, Roger Nasatka, and Kasierski. The women's masters team (McGahie, Sidney Letendre, and Ryczek) was also third.