This race was a little different in a few ways—first, it was part of a nationally-organized event, and the registration table took credit cards, which almost never happens. And second, it was an evening run, the first one of those I’ve done in a long time. My body didn’t quite feel up for it, but […]

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This race wins the award, so far, for most complicated and well-organized offsite parking scheme. I parked my car in a school parking lot and was driven to the race start, in another school parking lot, by school bus. I was the only passenger on the bus when I rode over, so I got the […]

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I don’t think I’d heard of Andover before deciding (last night) to run here—yet another town I associated with Massachusetts, rather than Connecticut. It’s been raining off and on for the past week, a little every day, and it rained on the way to the race. Things cleared up once I got into Andover, and […]

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The whole family came out for this one, and Grace joined me on the course for the 5K. We had a good time, and she did a great job, taking just a few short walk breaks along the course, and really giving it her all. We used every technique in the book—”run to that fence, […]

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I’d always wanted to visit Glastonbury, but was more interested in the festival in Somerset, rather than a town south of Hartford. Nevertheless, I head here, parked along a narrow country road, and found the race start in a little park. The course took us along small town streets, in a sort of loop, with […]

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I’m never quite sure how these town designations work; I showed up for this race in Mansfield, but as I pulled into the high school parking lot, right next to the University of Connecticut, Storrs, it seemed to me that I was in Storrs. I figured if it was listed on the club site, it […]

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I’d been to Norfolk for work before, and knew it was a beautiful little town up in the northwest corner of the state. The race was obviously a big event for the town, and it had a great feel, a nice sense of community around it. It was a really nice course, on the challenging […]

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It had been awhile since I’d had a chance to do a trail race, and with perfect weather—cool with a nice mist in the air—this was a great opportunity to get back into it. With all of the announcements about the markings on the course, I was worred this might be another poorly marked fiasco, […]

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With the long-awaited turn to nice weather, it was time to get back out with Grace and do another 5K. The course was pretty flat, and we did a good combination of walking and running. This time around, though, there was more wondering aloud and bargaining about how long the race was, how long it […]

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I’m at the point (about a third of the way through the towns) where I’m sometimes not completely certain whether I’ve run a race in any given town. If you’d told me I’d run in Waterford before, I’d probably believed you, but apparently I hadn’t. 40° is about my lower limit for shorts and t-shirt, […]

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It had been two months to the day since I’d run a race, and while a 5 miler wasn’t perhaps the best way to come back from some time off, it fit into the schedule. My time off had been due a combination of the busy holiday season and weather-related lack of races, and also […]

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I arrived at the Scandinavian Club just a few minutes before the start, with just enough time to register, drop off my donated toy, head back to my car to drop my wallet and keys, and run back to the starting line. I can tell you there is not a lot of parking down in […]

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Killingly may not technically be the farthest away as the crow flies, but it’s close when it comes to how long it takes to actually get there, a combination of sheer distance and also removal from either I-84 or I-395. It was about an hour and a half to get out to this corner of […]

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This was not the greatest day for a race, but I’ve been pretty lucky over the year, so I didn’t mind. It was a rainy day, and I misjudged when and where the 5K would start, not realizing the half marathon would start a good five minutes before our race. We all stood around waiting […]

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It didn’t turn out to have too much of a zombie element to it, but I really enjoyed the setting of this race, which ran in part along the old Portland Brownstone Quarries, a National Historic Landmark. The course passed the quarries and then meandered through a few neighborhoods before ending up back at the […]

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