January 17th - Rest

After 9 days and 71 miles of running, I decided today was a good day to take a day off. Well, that and the fact that I was not feeling good today. So, I spent the day catching up on this blog (this is a lot harder than it appears you know) and looking at the few races that I was asked to run in the past couple of days.

First, it looks like I have found my spring marathon. Fil asked me if I have looked at the Shires of Vermont Marathon. The website describes it as follows:

"A scenic point-to-point 26.2 mile course connecting the Shire Towns of Bennington and Manchester on May 15, 2011, as they celebrate their 250^th anniversaries! "New England’s Newest Marathon" is the only marathon held in southern Vermont—and this unique semiquincentenial event may be a one-time event."

It looks like this will be my marathon for the spring. The course follows mainly secondary roads through the villages of North Bennington, Shaftsbury, and Arlington, the campus of Bennington College, and rural countryside. Sections of the course will be closed to traffic. There is a net elevation loss of 160 feet, with 500 feet of vertical gain between Miles 2 and 13. The last six miles of the course are flat. About nine miles consist of hard-packed dirt, with the remainder of the surface paved. It should be a great race and it will allow me to check off another New England State on my marathon checklist.

The second race that I was asked to run was the Pack Monadnock 10 Miler on June 5th. Kali wanted to get back into distance running and decided this was the course for her (she's nuts)! This course was designed to give runners a hill-climb challenge and to test strength and endurance. The race starts on Highland St near Wilton Lnydeborough High School. It runs uphill for the first mile. At the first mile marker, the course flattens out as it turns onto Sand Hill Road (gravel) and remains flat for about one half mile. There will be a rolling uphill grade as Sand Hill road ends and merges onto Davisville Road (paved) through mile three.

Next, the course turns left onto Burton Highway with gradual uphill and rolling terrain. At approximately 5.5 miles, there is steep 1/4 mile climb. The course bears left onto Webster Highway for 1.5 miles of relatively flat, rolling paved road.

At mile 7, the course bears right onto Old Revolutionary Rd. (gravel) and goes uphill for one-half mile and flattens out for one-half mile. Just before mile 8 the course turns onto Rt. 101 (paved) and climbs a steep hill grade for 1/2 mile. The course becomes relatively flat for 2/10 mile as it passes Temple Mountains Ski Area.

The last 1.3 miles of the course climb the paved switch-back road in Miller State Park to the summit of Pack Monadnock Mountain. The last 1.3 miles are as steep or steeper than Mt Washington. 

This race will also serve as a great warm-up for the Mt. Washington Road Race two weeks later. I will be running it this year as I got to defer last year as something came up and I was unable to attend the race.

Other than these races, I have included other races I plan on running at the bottom of my blog homepage.


Also, I would like to congratulate GLRR President, Glenn Stewart, on his AG victory at this year's PF Changs Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon! He not only won his AG, he redefined the "mile 14" and got into a "brawl" doing it. You can read all about it HERE!