I decided to hook my first race in Fairfield County into a trip to do some research at the library in Greenwich. It was a three mile race, a tenth of a mile shorter than a 5K, but similar enough that I felt pretty impressed by my time, until I realized it wasn’t the full […]

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This was my first non-5K in a long time, and of course, I ran it like it was a 5K with a few more miles attached to the end. Running the race was my neighbor Ryan’s idea, and I was happy to have someone to run with (or chase, as it turned out). It was […]

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I took the opportunity afforded by a home weekend and the return of races – I’d been busy, but there also really weren’t very many to choose from over the past few weeks – to knock off a nearby town, Stratford. It was just 25 or so minutes away, in a part of town I’d […]

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Most of the races I’ve run so far have been fairly interchangeable, small-town 5Ks in a loop around the center of town. This one was different: a point-to-point, all uphill race leading from Hubbard park to the summit of West Peak in Meriden. You can read about the tradition behind the Tradition Run; this was […]

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I’d heard about this race for a few months now, and knew I wanted to do it; it was just a matter of what the weather would be like on January 10th. The race had been organized by members of the club, and existed almost solely to serve the purpose of allowing two runners to […]

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I’ve never been one for blow-out New Year’s Eve celebrations, but deciding to run a 5K on New Year’s Day confirmed the fact that the days of staying up all night were long gone. It was a surprisingly mild morning, and I ran in shorts and t-shirt, which was a little depressing, but made for […]

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As the weather continues to be disturbingly balmy, I thought I’d find one more nearby race to squeeze in before the holidays, a 5K a half an hour away in Trumbull. At some point it’s going to get a lot harder to knock off these towns, but for now, with less than 10% completed, almost […]

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An excuse to visit every corner of the state is one of the reasons joining this group seemed like a good idea, and I’m definitely getting the chance to see some nice little towns, especially along the Route 8 corridor, like Bethlehem. Eventually I may spend more time in these towns than 45 minutes before […]

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I headed out early on Halloween morning to reach Ellington, an “elusive” town on the opposite end of the state. It was a chilly morning when I arrived, but it warmed up enough for me to leave behind the long sleeve shirt I’d brought. The race started a bit of the middle of nowhere on […]

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We took a family trip to the very nearby Beacon Falls (or more accurately, to the parking lot at the high school in Beacon Falls), where the girls enjoyed the complimentary capes, pre-race Zumba routines, and a kids craft table. There was a pretty big 169 contingent today, and I enjoyed the run, despite the […]

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Feeling rejuvenated and possibly on my way to being healed after a month off and some physical therapy, I decided to take on another race this weekend, just up the Route 8 corridor (a drive I’m getting to know well) a half an hour away in Middlebury. It’s a picturesque little town I haven’t visited […]

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We hadn’t yet moved to Woodbridge in time for the 2013 Bagel Run, and I was out of town or out of commission for the 2014 edition, so I was more than ready to check off this easiest of towns this time around. It was a low-stakes way to try my first back-to-back races on […]

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The best part of the 169 Towns website is the giant spreadsheet of upcoming races, and towns without frequent races are labeled “elusive.” I hadn’t hit one of these town yet, so I thought I’d hit Deep River, a town whose name I don’t think I’d ever heard, this weekend. It was just past the […]

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I spent the six weeks after the Somers race trying to take it easy. I didn’t run, but we did walk a lot in Ireland, and I didn’t lay off quite as much as I would like to have, but that’s life. By the time September rolled around, I was getting a little antsy. I’d […]

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I’ve always enjoyed the extra challenge of a trail race, and some of my favorite races were the annual trail races I ran in California as part of the Xterra series. I ran the Leatherman’s Loop in April, but I had yet to run a trail race in Connecticut. I read about a race called […]

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