2016 White Mountain Milers Half Marathon

Sunday October 30, 2016 - North Conway, New Hampshire


I did the White Mountain Miles Half Marathon with my daughter Jen.  What I really like about this race (third time doing it) - you can sign up to do it as a walker, and they have an early start!  As a walker, I do appreciate that.


A few months back, Jen and I did the Great Saunter (32-mile walk 'saunter' around the island of Manhattan) and truth be told, neither of us walked any substantial distances since.  So basically, we were not prepared as much as we should have been for this race.  Oh well that just basically meant that we would not break any records and we would both be much sorer the next day, and the next day, and the...  You get it.  And that is exactly what happened.


We had a nice morning with temps around 50 and a 10-15 mph wind.  Except for the wind it was great.

Early Start for the half marathon

The first four miles were the best because we were still fresh, no pains anywhere yet and the runners had not caught up to us yet with the early start.  After that, as expected, getting passed by everyone.  It got a bit crowded at times as the race was on the side of roads with traffic.  There was only one port-o-potty at the half way point so I was queued up for that - wish they would have had more port-o-potties.


They had a nice spread at the end - pizza, bagels, root beer (in a keg - was really good), and more.  It was a good race and I am glad I got to do it with my daughter!

Manna Fund Popcorn 5K

Saturday June 18, 2016


Besides recently deciding to do more 5Ks, I've also noticed that I am much more inclined to doing a 5K if I do not have to travel too far to get to it.  Heck the last 5K I did, was so close, didn't even have to drive to get there.  So when I noticed the Manna Fund Popcorn 5K was in my town, it was a slam dunk deciding to do it.

The proceeds from the race support the Manna Fund, I had no idea what that was.  So of course with the magic of Google and a few clicks, it's a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing hope and financial assistance to individuals who need treatment for eating disorders.


Other than a pollen alert, it was in the low 70s with a 10-15 mph breeze at the beginning of the race.  This was really nice considering it has been in the 90s for about the last 10 days.  It felt good.


I estimated about a hundred participants in the race, give or take.  The race brochure indicated that medals would be given to the top three male and female finishers in five year increment age categories from 10 and under all the way up to 65 and over.  If it was an even distribution, age wise, of participants, that would be 72 medals.  So in a field of about a hundred, chances were pretty good that a lot of folks would go home with some hardware!


Just before the race started they brought us all in together to explain the course and the guy says "it's confusing but it really isn't".  It's never a good sign when they have to explain the course using the word confusing.   The normal trail at the park was 1.25 miles, so twice around would be .6 miles short of a 5K.  So at a certain point in the course there was a football field (with a track around it) and we needed to do two laps around that track but only on the first lap of the 1.25 mile course.   Being a really low key race, this was no big deal,  Plus it occupies your mind a little which is actually nice during a race.


We were off.  The park was opened for anyone  so there were quite a few others on the course doing their normal Saturday morning stroll/jog.  I'm sure they typically did not see a hundred or so extra people out on 'their' course on a quiet Saturday morning, but no one seemed to mind.


I ended up doing the course in 37:40 so I was happy with that, just over 12 minute miles.  It was a good workout.  And as mentioned earlier, with all of those medal categories, I place 2nd in my age group.  Although, there were only two of us in that age group!!!  :)

Number 64 - Fast Track 5K

Fast Track 5K - Memorial Day Weekend - May 28, 2016


About a month ago, while heading home on the Amtrak Crescent after the Great Saunter, I was thinking about the goals I have for myself on this blog - 100 races/events & 10,000 miles and I can retire from full time work.  Currently at about 8,300 miles and with the fitbit tracking, the 10,000 mile goal should be met in just over a year.  However, for races/events, I'm at 63, a little behind.  There is no way I'm going to do 37 races in a year!  But it looks like I need to focus a bit more on races/events.


So there I was on the train (NYC - Atlanta) thinking I needed to start looking for more races.  Luckily the train did have wifi so a few clicks and I'm on the race calendar on rungeorgia.com.  I am at the point where I really don't like doing marathons so I don't even bother looking at them.  I still enjoy doing half marathons, but not 37 of them!  So I'm going to concentrate more on doing 5K & 10Ks.  And as luck would have it, there are plenty of those to pick from.  Plus, as it turns out many of the 5Ks are basically fundraisers for some type of cause.  This really adds a nice dimension to do these races.


About this time, my mind shifted to where I was on this 18 hour journey so I switched over to the Amtrak tracker app and found we were 17 minutes from Trenton, NJ travelling at 107 MPH!

I was surprised, didn't think U.S. trains traveled that fast.  Okay back to finding some 5Ks.  It didn't take long before spotting a 5K near where I live coming up in a few weeks - the Fast Track 5k.  It just seemed to fit with being on a train going 107 MPH!

Proceeds from race support the Southeastern Railway Museum.  So being on a train (finding I prefer train travel over flying when I have the time) and finding this race just came together, it made sense to do this race.


It was a small race, think it had about 130 participants.  None the less, enjoyed it.


Need to find more races like this one.