October, 2011: Some big 'uns coming up

Okay, just getting organized for a few October races. I was out in New Mexico at a newspaper confab the past week, and got in a couple of runs in the cool, dry morning air of Albuquerque. Then, this past Monday, I arrived back in New Hampshire at 8:30 p.m. to find it humid and 80 degrees. I tell ya.

But fall is here and I'm sure things will be cooling down for the next batch o'races. The first (on Saturday, Oct. 1) is a big one: a half-marathon that will take me through three new towns. It's part of the Bristol-headquartered New Hampshire Marathon that's run each year on the first weekend of October. There's also a 5K in nearby Sanbornton that could bring the day's total to four. We'll see how I feel on either of these.

Then, on Saturday, Oct. 8, there's a cool-sounding race among the wind turbines up in the tiny hill town of Lempster, and on Sunday, Oct. 23 there's a loooooong (15 mile!) trail race on an abandoned rail bed in Brookline. The same day also brings a much tamer 5K in Laconia, a place I still need as well, but which always has races going on.

Also on Sunday, Oct. 23, there's a 10-miler in Concord sponsored by the Grappone Co., a local auto dealership in our area. Not sure if I'll do this or the Brookline one or the race in Laconia. But there's more info on the Granite State 10 online. Check it out!

Sept. 17: Report from New Ipswich 5K (#128)

Off to New Ipswich, N.H. (Town #128) for an early morning 5K in that town. Almost didn't make it because the race start was 8 a.m. and it was only after 7 a.m. when I checked the info at home, which is in Bedford, N.H. about 35 miles away. Whoops! But I hit the road fast and made good time, arriving with 10 minutes to spare -- a pretty wide margin for me, and downright excellent when you consider I had to guess at the location of Mascenic Regional High School, site of the race.

One factor was a good intuitive decision I made at the last minute. See, all I knew was that Mascenic High was on Route 124, which runs the length of the town. When I hit Route 124, it was on the far eastern side of town. Turn left, and the road went only about a half-mile. Turn right, and it ran about seven miles to the next town line. So to find the high school, odds are you turn right, right?

And that's what I was about to do, right at that intersection, until I glanced left just to check for traffic, and noticed a little "RUNNERS IN ROAD" sign. Hmmmm. On the left side of the intersection. Should I turn left? And then I remembered: it's Mascenic Regional High School, meaning more than one town sends kids to it, and in this case the towns are Greenville and Mason, which are, yes, to the left.

All this thought happened in a split second. I didn't have time to make a mistake, but I figured if I turned left and there was no high school in the half-mile in that direction, I at least had a chance of turning around and finding the school in the other direction. But if I turned right, I could go up to seven miles and not find it, making me miss the race.

So I turned left, drove up a hill, and there it was, off on the left: Mascenic Regional High School. Ha! No lottery tickets for me today: I've used up all my good fortune for awhile.

For me, it was the first race of the "post summer," meaning it was noticeably chilly at the start and in the shade, though not a problem to still wear the simple shirt/shorts outfit that I stick to when it's above 40 degrees. (It was 43 when I got out of the car, but felt colder because I'm not used to this just yet. By January, 43 will seem downright balmy.)

This first-ever "Viking 5K" was to support the school's athletic booster fund ($15 registration fee, very reasonable), and I was in need of a little boosting myself. I haven't been sleeping consistently all week, and I think I've started to pick up the cold my wife has been battling. And then the layout isn't conducive to fast times, as it includes a series of upgrades and finishes with a pretty steep incline. To make it more interesting, much of the race is on Route 124, a narrow state highway that remained open during the race, and which carries significant truck traffic, at least on a Saturday morning.

Still, I hung in there and finished in 30:33, not bad considering how I felt. At least I didn't stop on any of the hills, and I did have a nice burst of energy at the end, after topping the final hill, and was able to finish strong. Ended up as 51 out of 99, with pace of 9:50.

One interesting twist that I'd never seen before was that the timing folks had a large video display set up on which results were posted sort-of-live. (It took a bit for you to appear after finishing, and the results weren't posted in order.) Quite different from the usual print-it-out-and-tape-it-to-the-bandstand method widely in use.

Deja vu in Bristol (#127) on Saturday, Sept. 3

Well, that seemed familiar. And that's because it was. Today's 4.2-mile "Run Your Buns Off" road race in Bristol was actually almost entirely in neighboring Bridgewater, and followed the exact same course I ran in that town just this past May. The only difference was that it started and ended just over the Bristol line instead of the Bridgewater Fire Department, about 100 yards up the highway. Strange!

So technically, because 98 percent of the race was in Bridgewater, it doesn't really count as "doing Bristol" under the terms of my quest. (At least half the distance of a 5K needs to be in a town for it to count.) But since I'll be running the N.H. Half Marathon on Oct. 1 this year, and since it ends in Bristol (and passes through four other towns!), I'm not going to be too upset about it. Heck, I'll even count today's race as my official run in Bristol, though mostly because I don't want to feel like an idiot for going up there and running it.

I almost didn't find it. I went up Route 3A from the town center, thinking the bakery was just up the road. So I drove, and drove, and soon was way out of town and heading along Newfound Lake to Bridgewater, the next town up. I figured I'd somehow missed the race, and was looking for a place to turn around, when up ahead I noticed a big crowd on one side of the road and a police officer directing traffic, and that was it.

Really? I thought we must have been in Bridgewater by then, but no -- the "town line" sign was right there, just beyond the bakery, which must occupy the last lot before the border. So yes, the race started and ended in Bristol, but only about 200 feet of the course was in the town. The rest was in neighboring Bridgewater. Weird, too, that I ran the Bridgewater race on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend (to start the summer), and then did this one on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, traditionally the end of the summer season around here. Nice symmetry!

Oh well. Sunny, warm, and humid this morning (a change from the nice dry conditions we've had all week) and I thought it would be a slog, but no. I started strong and kept up the pace all the way, following a gal for the first half before losing her after the one long hill, then racing and beating a 10-year-old in the home stretch, even with my left shoe completely unlaced. (I'm not proud to say that I won, but kids gotta learn what the real world is like someday.)

Not at badly organized race. Reasonable same-day registration fee of $20. Start was a little confusing, with no one able to hear any announcements due to passing motorcycles on Route 3A and the guy constantly turning his megaphones in all directions as he talked. (I got one thing: "Have a fun time!")

The race was organized by the Basic Ingredients Bakery to benefit Bristol Community Services and was organized on an unusual Yin/Yang promise: that one of their sticky buns (free to all finishers) = 420 calories, which is exactly what would be burned off by a typical person running 4.2 miles. Well, okay! I'm just glad they didn't serve ice cream (maybe 1,000 calories) alongside it because there's no way I could have run an extra 10 miles.

The sticky buns afterwards were, sorry to say, a bit of a let-down: dry and kinda bland and actually not very sticky. Maybe I got one that missed out on the cinnamon and sugar and all that, but it seemed a little weird for the star attraction to not live up to the hype.

No results posted yet, but the clock read 40:22 as I crossed the finish line. Just over my imagined goal of finishing in 40 minutes, but came durned close. Worked out my pace as 9:36 per mile, but we'll see if my math agrees with theirs when results get posted.