What the 234 is all about

Is it possible to run a road race, minimum 5K, in every single community in New Hampshire, U.S.A.? Why would anyone try?

Read on...

In the spring of 2001, I was diagnosed with Type II "adult onset" diabetes. I'm fine now; with diet and exercise and of course LOTS OF DRUGS it's generally under control. I think I'm actually in much better shape now than I was before all this happened. But I digress. (That should be the title of my life story. But I digress again.)

At the time, as part of my plan to stay well, I began running again. I had done a lot of it up through college—always on my own, never part of a team. When I lived in Glasgow, Scotland for a year of college, I took long runs through unfamiliar city streets (the climate is perfect for running year-round) and kept track of my meanderings on a large map with a red marker.

Getting sick the weekend I was supposed to run the NYC Marathon (in November, 1985, my senior year at Fordham University) took the wind out of my running sails, and soon the post-college priorities of real life meant less time for running. Gradually, I stopped. Didn't plan to, but it was always something I'd get back into, maybe next month.

My initial diabetes scare, however, prompted me to get back into it for real, first on my own and then in races to help me get out and stay motivated. In the summer of 2001, a 5K road race in Derry, N.H. was the first of my restarted running career. Where once I could finish a 5K in 22 minutes (pretty good for a short-legged guy), it now took more than 30. Still, others followed, with no particular plan in mind other than to get out and be more active.

In my home office, a big foldable paper map of New Hampshire hangs on a closet door. It's nothing elaborate, but does include border lines for all 234 of the state's cities, towns, and unincorporated places. (Those are sparsely populated areas up north that for one reason or another never petitioned the state Legislature to officially become a town - usually because no one lived there.) I recalled how, as a student in Glasgow, a map helped me track my running progress. So now, each time I completed a race, I'd take a bright orange highlighter and color in the town on my New Hampshire map.

As I got back into road races, I was surprised at how many were being held all over the state, and how easy it was to get info on them. Back in the day, you found out about races through word of mouth or by magazines and such. Now, with the Internet and sites like www.coolrunning.com, on some weekend I could pick from a half-dozen races in different communities!

So I got to thinking: might it not be possible to run a road race, minimum 5K, in every single one of New Hampshire's 234 cities, towns, or unincorporated places? What if I tried? What if I "collected" races until I had a complete set? How long would it take? What would I see? What kind of an adventure would it be?

Thus I started. That first season, each time I came home from a race, I'd color in the borders of the community where it took place. And gradually, one race at a time, my map of New Hampshire began to turn orange.

I've kept at it, in fits and starts, over the past decade. Like many race courses, the effort has had its ups and downs. Along the way, I've run races in every month of the year; on the state's sizzling NASCAR track and on dirt trails in the woods; in sun, rain, fog, and snow; in massive fields of thousands of runners and in races where as few as six people showed up; and in many places in my home state I'd never set foot in.

As of the fall of 2017, I have 146 towns colored in. That's more than halfway, and a big chunk of the map (especially the state's southern tier) now glows orange. And there are still many New Hampshire towns with road races that I haven't gotten to yet, so I'm nowhere near running out.

What happens when I do? It's inevitable, as I doubt the citizens of a North Country town such as Odell (Population: 0) are about to organize a road race, especially in a locale with no roads. So when I get to that point, my plan is to stage my own 5K races, even if it means bushwhacking through the woods, until the whole state is colored orange.

One thing I've done with each race is saved the bib—you know, the little piece of water-resistant paper with a runner's number on it. On the back, I write all the pertinent details of each race right after I finish: not just the finishing time and other stats, but notes about the weather and personal observations about anything unusual, such as one blisteringly hot day in Portsmouth where I was passed by a nun dressed in a full habit.

I've kept them all, if only as a record of the adventure and perhaps as proof of the experience. (Not that it's necessary: the results of just about all races I've run are archived on www.coolrunning.com for all to see. Sometimes I'm JEFF RAPSIF or JESS RATSPIS or other variations, but it's all there for anyone to see.)

And now, I think it's time to go public.

So this blog has a dual purpose. Going foward, I plan to record info and observations from each race that I run in. And looking back, I will transfer the info on the bibs here so it's in one place, even if the only person interested in browsing through it all is me.

I suppose another purpose is to raise awareness of how it's possible to use a little creativity to find adventure right in your own backyard. It's not hard to find new ways to experience life, even in the area you think you know best. In my case, what could have been an aimless effort to stay in shape has become a long-term crusade with a purpose and a form and structure to it, and it's already gotten me to many places I might never have experienced.

It's also gotten me a number of sprains and other minor injuries, but more on those as they happen, which they will. But I digress.

By the way: It's true that New Hampshire has 234 municipalities (defined as the 13 cities and 221 towns chartered by the state Legislature), hence the name of this blog.

But New Hampshire also has 25 unincorporated places, or townships, which was usually uninhabited tract of land in the North Country that thus don't have any kind of local government structure.

Although I haven't included these in my "234" total, it's my intention to include them in my quest. As some barely have any hiking trails in them, we'll see how that goes...