I’ve been wanting to run the Manchester Road Race since we moved to Connecticut, after hearing about giant size and its long history. Thanksgiving Day can be a tough race to schedule, but I finally got the chance this year, in the race’s 80th running. It was a really chilly morning, and I was happy […]

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I don’t know how much I really changed my pacing for this distance as opposed to the 5Ks I’ve been running, but it was nice to have a bit of a change. The most memorable part of the race for me were the folks by the side of the course, cheering us on and offering […]

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Columbia, another little Connecticut town I’d never been to, home to a race with a slightly different setup than most: the first half was fairly straight downhill, and the course then doubled back and had us running back uphill the same way, which you knew was coming all along. Not exactly fun, but I managed […]

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Everyone came along for this one, a big event on a nice day, not too far away in Guilford. My parents were visiting, and the girls ran the fun run, which was big enough to actually have two separate events: a shorter one which Lucy ran and a bigger loop which Grace did. The 5K […]

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A pretty drizzly day, and a race in a town that didn’t seem that far away on the map, but ended up taking a long time to get to, simply because of the geography and the road system around this part of the state. I wondered if anyone else was going to show up, and […]

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With everyone else away, I had the opportunity to tackle two first-time races this weekend. In Danbury, where I’d only ever been for a postcard show almost 20 years ago, I ran the Spirit of Danbury 5K. It was another small race, just over 50 runners, and I found myself running near the front in […]

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I’ve been to the movies in Waterbury, but that’s about it. It’s a big enough place that probably has a lot of races, so I was one of the only 169ers there today, for a small but very well-run race. Most races have a sort of connection between the size of the field and the […]

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Some towns are known as “elusive” in the parlance of the group, if they host only one race a year, but from what I gather, Bethany is more than elusive, having not hosted a race for years. The group itself was behind the race, a Friday night event populated almost completely by club members, many […]

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Another race of opportunity, chosen on the morning of because we had no plans and the town was close. I found a spot behind the YMCA, got registered, and headed outside just in time to see the mayor open the event with a tune on his bugle, and head the local high school band play […]

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Well, that was a first. After taking the end of the summer off, and running two races in Alaska and the annual New Haven Road Race, it was time to get back on the 169 train. I arrived in East Haven to register for the 5K around 9:10, for a 10:00 am start. After registering, […]

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Most of the races I’ve run have been fairly official affairs, with bibs, the now requisite chip-timing, sponsor tents, the $99 DJ, and so on. Roxbury, only about 40 minutes away in Litchfield, is home to the Roxbury Road Race series, a long-standing season of 40 or so road races a year, put on by […]

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It’s only going to get more difficult to knock off races as I check off nearby towns, but for the time being, it’s nice to be able to find a race within a half hour of home. For #25, I thought I might try a 10K instead of the normal 5K, so I headed to […]

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This was a great little race, a fundraiser for the high school running team and a big draw for teachers and students, as the name implies. It was a quick half hour drive to Cromwell, and I found a small group of Run 169ers there (you never know; many races will gather 30 or more […]

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It had been almost a month since I’d done a Connecticut race, with most of that time spent recovering from the Leatherman’s Loop and a very busy April of travel. As our weekends get busier, I’ve been picking off nearby town, so my time away from home is minimized. Prospect was only 20 minutes away, […]

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I’m quickly running out of nearby towns to run a quick race in, one that doesn’t eat up a whole morning with driving, but then again, you’ve got to run them all eventually, so near or far, you may as well get them done when you can. This was a small, nicely run race, run […]

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