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.

Late August update

Bit of a breather here, meaning a couple of weekends with no new towns to run in. And just in time, too, because in the past two weeks I've been nursing a stubbornly inflamed Achilles tendon in my right foot. Usually this goes away readily, but it's stuck around pretty consistently since the race in Epsom on Sunday, Aug. 14.

So, besides applying cold packs to it, I've been staying off it, which is sometimes the only cure. Hope it calms down in time for the races that starting coming fast and furious again next month. I'd still like to go for a couple of long-ish ones, including the New Hampshire Half-Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 1, but that's only going to happen if things go well.

Well, it's been a productive season. I've added about a dozen new communities to my roster, taking it up to a total of 126 (out of 234) and passing the half-way point somewhere in there. I might have a discrepancy in the count this spring, which I have to look into and rectify. I tell you, it's always something.

In the meantime, I've finally been getting on the bike and getting in some mileage. We've had excellent summer weather here in New Hampshire -- sunny, breezy, and dry. So on Monday I rode for about an hour, and then on Tuesday I pushed myself and took a hilly ride all the way out to New Boston, a nearby town, and then back through Goffstown and Bedford. About 2.25 hours, longest ride by far this season and on my new Giant Defy touring bike.

It's been more than a year since I had my bike-destroying accident (on July 31, 2010) and to be honest, I'm still a little apprehensive on some of the narrower roads when traffic is present. Hope that goes away, but it's hard to not be thinking that every driver who comes up behind you could be the one...

Most drivers are considerate and clearly drive in a way that shows a willingness to share the road. To those who do, thanks!

Sunday, Aug. 14: report from Epsom (#126)

Ah, the increasingly rare joy of a short drive to a road race. That's what I experienced this morning in getting out to the Epsom Old Home Day 4-miler, which took place about a half-hour drive from my home in Bedford, N.H. (And that included a stop for gas!) Really - with very few remaining towns that are that close to home base, I've resigned myself to a lot of windshield time to continue this quest. So when you get one that's this close in, it's a special gift. And the weather was nice, too: building overcast without a lot of sun to heat things up.

Webster Park is a big town recreation area right on Route 28. I've driven by it probably a hundred times and never noticed it, but it's on a grand scale, with fields and roads and granite benches here and there. It's also the site of the town's annual Old Home Day festivities, which was what prompted the road race, which was a benefit for the park.

It was a classic N.H. race in two respects: the familiar voice of Andy Schachat was on the P.A. system calling it, and Delta Dental CEO Tom Raffio was running. The course was a straight-forward out-and-back, with Epsom Central School the turn-around point, though Schachat made sure everyone knew to turn left at the army tank (really!) to enter the park on the way back. (The retired tank, a full-size real life one, is on display outside the American Legion Ellwood O. Wells Post No. 112.)

In case you're interested, here's a picture of the tank, which to me looks like an M60 A3, which the U.S. phased out in 1997, I'm told. But oops, several people apparently overshot the tank on the way back, adding maybe an extra third of a mile to their run. I can how that happened, as the only turn indication was a white arrow chalked onto the road, and it was easy to miss with that big tank right in front of you. Well, these things happen. Next time I'd get a volunteer to main this spot.

The course was a nice one, with rolling hills and some sections along actual working cornfields, where the stalks are at their full height this time of year. I'm sure we crossed the grade of the long-abandoned Suncook Valley Railroad, but I couldn't tell exactly where.

Finished in 38:58, for a pace of 9:44, not bad and a nice recovery from yesterday's slow run in Richmond, N.H. Finished 37 out of 56. Entry fee, another reasonable $15. And I won the very last raffle prize: a visor made in China! And that's the story of Town #126. Only...er, 108 to go!

Aug. 13: Richmond (#125) at Camp Wiyaka

Richmond is one of those quiet New Hampshire backwoods towns, one that the railroads missed and everything else, too, I never expected to find a 5K road race there. But that's what happened today (Saturday, Aug. 13), as the good folks at Camp Wiyaka organized one as part of their annual Alumni Day, which marks the close of camp for the season.

I hadn't been in Richmond for years, but I have some prior involvement with the town. About 25 years ago, I tried to buy a 48-acre woodlot in a remote part of town. Asking price: $15,000. It was 1986. I had just graduated from college, and my idea was to build a cabin and use it for writing. (Present day reaction to this scheme from one of my colleagues: "Okay, Mr. Henry David Thoreau.") In my mind, I had my own version of my grandfather's asbestos hunting cabin, which still stands in the backwoods of Harrisville, N.H. This would be my own, and minus the asbestos.

The land fronted on a Class VI road, meaning one that was no longer maintained by the town. Small towns in N.H. are riddled with these, left from a time when most of the land was farms that have since been left to grow back to forest. To get there, a real estate agent and I drove up Benson Road as far as we could, then hiked in the rest of the way, about a half-mile. Like of lot of rural New Hampshire, it had been left abandoned sometime after the Civil War. It had beaver pond with a big dam, several small family graveyards in which the most recent date was 1888, and stone walls all over the place. Curiously, there was also an abandoned school bus that had somehow made it up there, and which someone had been living in until recently.

It was exactly what I wanted.

However, the catch was that the town would not issue a building permit for land with no access. No building permit, no cabin. So unless I wanted to live in the bus, I was stuck. The lot was good as forest, but not much else, unless I wanted to pay to bring the road up to town standards. Also, for the first time in my life, I encountered property taxes. So poof went that dream!

Plus, I found out that a few years prior, the bus was scene of a honest-to-goodness backwoods New Hampshire murder! Really -- the abandoned road led all the way into the town of Troy, where there was a tough country & western dance place, and one night a woman for some reason was dragged up the road to the bus, held captive, and eventually murdered!

This really happened.

It wouldn't have kept me from buying the place, and I often wonder what would have happened if I had. And now, 25 years later, here I am driving into Richmond to find Camp Wiyaka not too far from my own version of Paradise Lost -- just on the other side of Route 32.

The camp, 90 years old this season, consists of rustic buildings spread out along a small lake and up a small hill. Campers stay for a week at a time, sleeping in platform tents that bunk eight. There's a dining hall, recreation hall, playing fields, and overall the place looks pretty timeless -- not much different in 2011 than it probably did in 1921. Heck, I wouldn't have minded staying a week here.

On this Saturday morning, all the campers are gone, having departed the night before after completing Camp Wiyaka's final week of the 2011 season. Today is Alumni Day, with a road race at 9 a.m. kicking things off. Fine, except someone posted a 10 a.m. start online, which means me and a few others turn up after the race has been run!

Faced with this, the Camp Wiyaka organizers decided to run the same race all over again at 10 a.m. Course volunteers were told to maintain their stations (some walkers were still out there from the 9 a.m. start!) and a half-dozen of us lined up on the lakeside volleyball court for the second edition. Entrance fee was a reasonable $15.

The course was unusual and varied -- part rough trail, part paved road, part dirt road. The first part took us on a loop through the campgrounds, including behind the latrines, before getting us out onto paved Sandy Pond Road. We changed to a dirt road until the half-way point turn-around, then back, including the camp loop one more time before the finish.

I have to give credit to the volunteers who maintained their posts long after they expected the event to be over. They were cheerful and did their best to mask what must have been utter boredom -- a kid at one intersection was actually building a house of cards on the pavement!

Though I was a complete outsider, people were friendly enough, and I didn't feel like a visiting space alien as I explored the camp. Finishing time was 35:02, which is really slow, but I felt sluggish all week and I have a feeling the distance of the Camp Wiyaka Race was a little longer than 5K. But no matter. I had actually run a race in Richmond, N.H., thanks to the good folks of Camp Wiyaka.

Now, I need to go looking for some property...

Rindge (#124) on Saturday, Aug. 6

A belated post on the Rindge "Tour De Common" -- sorry, but it's been than kind of a week.

Nice weather, a little warm but overcast building in, for a 5K race in this town on the Massachusetts line, about an hour's drive from where I live. Not too much prior experience with Rindge, though technically the Jaffrey-Rindge School District was part of my beat when I was education writer for the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, the local paper, two decades ago.

The only other thing I can think of is that I bought some coins at an auction house here many years ago, too. Another distinction of Rindge is that it's one of only a handful of New Hampshire communities with a one-syllable name. Offhand, the only others I can think of are Lee, Bath, Troy, and Hill. Oh, and Weare. (Where?)

Anyway! Very organized race with a really well laid-out course, too. Starting just above the town common at the police station; first mile drifted steadily downward, then bottomed out. Before Mile 2, we hit a series of upgrades, none of which were soul-destroying, but just enough to keep you focused. (It helped that a woman was continually coming up behind me, then walking, then catching up again, then walking, which kept me from slacking off.) Then, for maybe the last half-mile, it's a long downhill back to the town center, and razor straight and open so you can see who's in front of you and all that.

The net effect of all of this was to just pull me along at a quicker rate than usual, even though the sun was breaking through and starting to heat things up. Finished in 29:07, my fastest time in years! Pace of 9:24, vs. the usual 10-minute mile. I came in 41 out of 73 runners, or just five places out of placing in the top half, a rare occurrence for me.

One weird thing about this one was that after going to my car to change into a non-soaked shirt, I returned to the town common to find a group of woman line dancing as part of the awards ceremony. Hey, whatever. Also, I had a few moments to study the town's veterans memorial, which reads like a language lesson. Class, what tenses are in use here? Pay attention!

As for Canaan on Sunday, Aug. 7, I'm embarrassed to say I overslept and would not have made it up there in time. Let's hope the Canaan Police Department decides to make their "Run From The Law" an annual event so I get another shot.

What happened to Brentwood? (Not #124)

Well, it happens once in awhile. On Sunday, July 31, I drove out to the town of Brentwood (about 40 minutes) to take part in the "Kuiper Twin 5K," set to start at 8 a.m. at "Brentwood School" (actually Swasey Elementary School) on Middle Road. Simple enough. So I get out there, and the school is completely deserted. So is the town hall/police station. So is the town recreation center. So is everything. And there's no one to ask. Anywhere. Not even birds are chirping.

By the time 8 a.m. came and went, I had checked out all the likely spots, and found no race evidence: no cones in the road, no arrows chalked at intersections, no volunteers cautioning me to slow down for runners in the road. So I went and had breakfast in Exeter. Oh well! I'll have to pick up Brentwood (one of the remaining towns in Rockingham County) some other time.

I later found that yes, there had been a "Kuiper Twin 5K" race, but it took place on Saturday, July 30, not Sunday. D'oh! Lesson learned: check and double-check obscure road race listings before setting out, as more than a few times I've beed misled by inaccurate postings or what I refer to as SCC Syndrome. (The initials stand for "Self-Caused Confusion."