Saturday, Nov. 26: Rollinsford 5K (#130)

...in which I was injured by a bagel. Read on...

Went out to New Hampshire's eastern limits this morning to run a race in Rollinsford, a town on the state's border with Maine. In fact, the "Tatenda 5K" crossed over into Vacationland and back, making it the only bi-state race so far in the 130 I've completed in my quest.

It's been unseasonably mild for the end of November, so some of us (me included) ran the race in t-shirt and shorts, which is very unusual for this time of year. At left is photo taken at a more verdant time of year. For me, the barrier is usually 40 degrees Fahrenheit -- anything below that, I need pants, a sweatshirt, etc. I brought all the cold weather gear with me on the hour-long drive, but at race time (9 a.m.), the temperature was already in the mid-40s, on its way to the upper 50s. So bare skin prevailed.

Rollinsford (population 2,500) is a town I know nothing about except I have a cousin who lives there. (Hi John Fortier!). The town is centered on Salmon Falls Village, which itself is clustered around a large brick former textile mill complex on the Salmon River. As in every other old New Hampshire milltown, textiles are long gone, but Rollinsford doesn't seem too be doing too badly. The sprawling complex of what used to be the Salmon Falls Manufacturing Co. has been renovated into space for artist studios and chai cafes and many other small businesses. The town, as well as South Berwick, Maine across the river, has a kind of hippie flair to it, with organic cafes and coffeehouses and funky small restaurants everywhere.

An unusual feature is that the main railroad line connecting Boston to Portland, Maine runs right through town, crossing the Salmon River on a very high bridge, at least from the perspective of the mill below the falls. As I was warming up, I heard the tell-tale honk of an Amtrak Downeaster passenger train from afar, and was surprised to see it suddenly shoot over the bridge way above us at a fairly fast clip.

Speaking of which, I was hoping to run at a fairly fast clip as well, as the course was promoted as "flat." All I can say is, whoever decided that must have been raised halfway up the Mount Washington Auto Road. The course, which makes a zig-zaggy loop from Rollinsford into South Berwick, Maine and then back, was full of ups and downs. That, coupled with a persistent minor cold and a lousy night's sleep, prevented me from breaking the 30 minute barrier, though most other conditions were favorable -- I've been running regularly, the temperatures were cool, and I felt pretty strong.

The finish was tough because you come back into the millyard and there's a long straight stretch to the finish line way in the distance. I could see the clock said "29:something" but couldn't tell the seconds. As I got closer, it was in the 40s, but I kept pushing even though it appeared I would slide past 30 minutes. The official time: 30:14, finishing 24 out of 45 participants.

Two unusual things. At the start, announcer Andy Schachat handed over the mike to an organizer to say a few words, and she concluded her remarks by unexpectedly saying "Go!" Half the field immediately took off, but Schachat called everyone back to try again after the National Anthem. Also, after running a total of 130 races, this was the very first time that I suffered a treatable injury. It happened not during the race, but after, while slicing a bagel, when the plastic serrated knife went through the bagel and fairly deep into the tip of my right index finger. Sheesh! Injured by a bagel. Many thanks to the women of the White Heron Tea Co. (Motto: Good Tea for Good People), who allowed use of their first aid kit for me to patch myself up.

Entry fee: $25, not outrageous, and all proceeds support Tatenda International. And what the heck is that? It's an international service group that supports "efforts of established relief organizations via retreats, resources and youth development." The word 'Tatenda' means “thank you” in the Shona language of Zimbabwe. For more information about the program, check out the group's Web site.

So a big Tatenda to all who made this race happen. It's likely the last new city, town or unincorporated place in New Hampshire that I'll race in this year, and was a memorable finale. So we end 2011 with a total of 130, meaning there's just 104 to go.

Some goals for 2012

We're not done with 2011 quite yet, but I thought it would be a good idea to set out some fitness adventure goals for 2012 now. Why? Because we're getting close to when winter hits around here (meaning snow on the ground that stays, and little daylight), and so it's important to stay motivated, get out when I can, get back in the gym regularly, and so on.

So!

Here are a few adventures I hope to accomplish in 2012:

WINTER
• Do one "ski area" mountain road race
• Go downhill skiing at least three times
• Start swimming with goal of competing in triathalon in 2012

SPRING
• Do one Half Marathon
• Bike from York, Maine to Bedford, N.H. Before they take out Memorial Bridge...

SUMMER
• Complete the 48 N.H. 4,000-footers. Zahnna has 18 to go...
• Bike the Kanc (out and back) before it gets hot
• Run in the Mt. Washington Auto Road race. Lottery is in February/March...
• Join in the Winnipesaukee Relay Race in September. Pick up rare towns...

FALL
• Half Marathon in Dixville Notch
• New Hampshire Half Marathon. Route includes three rare towns...
• Manchester (N.H.) Half Marathon.

Winding down for the winter

Well, time to update things. I've been going through a cycle where weekends have been burdened with commitments that have prevented me from getting out to any of the few remaining races this season. I missed the "Ghost Train" race on an abandoned railbed in Brookline, N.H., and also the Manchester Marathon (half marathon for me) last weekend, and this weekend I'll be out of town for an odd annual race in Grantham. (Next year for sure!)

But I'm still running -- more than usual, in fact. Lately, as the days have been growing shorter, I've been fitting in hour-long runs with two of our dogs through the streets and woods of Bedford, N.H., our hometown. We have a heckuva time, first running fairly aggressively on trails through a nearby patch of woods, and then, when the initial excitement dies down, in formation along the sides of roads. Abby and Inca have turned into a good and responsive team, at least after they've calmed down a bit.

Partly, these runs are self-preservation. If the dogs didn't get the exercise, they'd go crazy. (Come to think of it, so would I.) But it's also a reflexive response, I think, to the shortening days at this time of year, and the desire to get in as much outdoor activity before the weather really turns and you have to start thinking of what to wear to not freeze to death or be hit by a car when the roads are narrowed and lined by snowbanks.

So as we enter the home stretch of 2011, I feel I'm in pretty good shape overall. Started by bagging Antrim as Town #113 this past April, and got as far as Lempster as Town #129 last month, passing the half-way point (to #234) along the way somewhere. I may still be able to notch a coupla three races around Thanksgiving, although one of them involves a slog all the way up to Whitefield, N.H., something like two hours one-way. We'll see.

And before you know it, we'll be planning out races for 2012. There's still a sizable number of towns with races that I haven't yet run, but we're getting to the point where I'm going to have to start doing "freelance" races (making them up myself) in some towns to keep the momentum going. After, all it's not likely that the town of Odell (population: 0) is about to hold a 5K anytime soon.

Geez, though. More than half-way there. I might actually finish this quest one of these days...

Oct. 8: Lempster (#129) 5K, but just barely

I sometimes cut it close getting out to races, but today was the closest shave yet.

The "Windmill 5K," set for 11 a.m. in Lempster, was originally set to take place on a service road among 12 enormous wind turbines that were erected on a ridgetop in town in 2008. By enormous, I mean the towers are 250 feet high and the blades are 139 feet long, meaning each windmill stands nearly 400 feet high.

It's New Hampshire's first commercial wind farm, and the huge white windmills, visible for miles around, make for quite a sight as the blades pinwheel around. So the chance to run a race on the facility's service road was too good to pass up.

Alas, safety concerns prevented use of the service road, so organizers relocated to roads around the Goshen-Lempster School, whose parent-teacher group staged the race. Either way, I needed Lempster, so off I went, taking our smallest dog, one-year-old Inca, along for the ride and possibly the run.

Lempster is one of those hill towns in southwestern New Hampshire that started small and stayed that way. No railroad ever came to town, so there was never any commercial center or "downtown." It was just upland farms and such, with a few gravel pits for good measure; when I worked for the Eagle-Times in Claremont, I got to do a few stories from Lempster because the town was on the fringe of the paper's coverage area. Until the establishment of the wind farm, the town's most noteworthy distinction was an inn that boasted an unusual three-story outhouse. (Alas, it's now gone.)

It's about 90-minute drive to Lempster from where I live, and I pulled into town via Route 31 (great views of the wind farm from the east) at about 10:45 a.m. -- plenty of time for me! I thought I knew where the school was so drove south on Route 10 (the main drag) until I thought I'd missed it, so turned around and headed back north. I went up "Ball Park Road," thinking that might be where the school was, but nope. Crossing into Goshen but seeing no school, I kept going, thinking perhaps I'd misread my map.

With minutes ticking away, I drove all the way to Goshen's border with Newport, the next town up, thinking by then it was unlikely I'd find the school in time to run the race. Rats! I turned around, headed south again, but just to head home on a different route. After driving a few minutes, I passed where I'd first turned around, and just beyond that -- sure enough, one of those "Kid and Parent" signs that means "SCHOOL AHEAD" I looked at my dashboard clock just in time to see it change to 11:00 a.m.

And there, on my left, was the race! Everyone was lined up, a police escort was on hand, and a woman was giving instructions to the runners. So I pulled over, hopped out, and asked if I could join in and register afterwards. (So much for warming up or stretching!) Told yes, I confirmed with the cop it was okay to leave my car there (unlocked, with wallet and keys and phone -- this was Lempster, N.H.) and then, seeing no problem with taking the dog, got Inca out and on her leash.

The race started right then, and off we went, down a dirt road, running past the school and up the hill below the wind farm, which loomed over us. Inca was thrilled to suddenly be running with all these people (she probably thinks this is what I do every day when I leave the house in the morning) and pulled me right along, adding to the absurdity of it all.

The course was a hilly one, and the day was sunny and already unseasonably warm, so it was sweat city as we went up and down the back roads, at one point circling a pond and encountering an older black Lab, who followed us for awhile before peeling off. At the turn-around point (on a non-maintained "Class VI" road), I was surprised to be told I was in 9th place overall, but that changed quickly when we encountered a loose and very playful puppy. No one know whom he belonged to (though he had tags and a collar), and he was causing disruption with the runners, who at that point were coming in both directions.

He was a real distraction for Inca, and there seemed to be every chance that he'd follow us for the rest of the race, so I stopped and made it my business to get the dog so a kid could hold onto him until we could get away. Except the dog had other ideas -- he was in play mode, and the best game of all was apparently "Keep Away from the Human in the Orange Shirt."

After a few minutes of this (and being passed by a dozen people), I gave up, and Inca and I continued on. Yes, he followed us until he spotted another dog coming in the other direction (with a walker), and then went back in the direction of where we first encountered him.

But my troubles weren't over! After sprinting down the long hill (not easy on a dirt road full of rocks), Inca and I made a right into the school parking lot to finish. However, a sign said you had to go "around the school" first. Or at least I thought it said this, because what you really had to do was just go around a little loop in front and finish. Instead, Inca and I went all the way around the school, a considerably longer distance, before coming around to the finish chute.

People saw this, but no one said anything because I wasn't wearing a number, and a woman said they just assumed I was out for a run on my own. (This in a town where everyone knows everyone else on a first-name basis?) In coming down the chute, my numberless status prompted a brief cross-examination. Turned out I couldn't be included after all, but I paid the $20 fee just the same. My time was officially something like 35 minutes, but that included time messing with the dog plus the extra distance around the school, so I didn't really take it too seriously. Even so, I just looked at the results, and that placed me 16th out of 32, which isn't too shabby.

Thanks for holding the race, Lempster, and for letting me just show up like that and run it.

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.