Beautiful sunny skies took the place of the cold rains of halloween weekend, and 32 runners showed up to enjoy some fun in the sun. In addition to more forgiving weather, this week’s course was more forgiving as well, spending some time in the flat meadows and winding back through the woods with some moderate hills.
This course was a new one for the trail running series, and almost certainly never been run by anyone before. The tightly packed trail network at Hard’ack with intersections everywhere allows for lots of creativity in creating race courses, and race director Tyler Magnan likes to mix things up. The start line was near the bottom of the entrance to the Gratton fields. Runners then headed straight up towards the woods, and did a sweeping right turn around the massive dirt pile created by the pool construction project. One racer inquired about taking a short cut over the top of the massive pile, and the race director allowed it, but nobody decided that was the best route to take. Racers then hugged the woods and headed straight north through the meadow, enjoying a light tail wind, which hopefully allowed some to forgive Tyler for sending them into a nasty headwind last year on the same stretch. After a loop around the furthest meadow, racers then ducked into the woods onto the rolling terrain and wound their way back south before popping out on the sledding hill, and heading back down to the meadow. 5k racers did two laps, and a few opted for just one lap.
As runners came around for lap one, it was apparent that a lot of people were buddying up, running with friends or family, something we like to see at a small community event like this. Damian and Jessica Bolduc came through the first lap together, with Damian edging away towards the finish. The next couple to come through were Tania and Jason Storms, eventually finishing together. Our third couple pairing was Laura and Barry Gould. Then we had Roy Sargent and son Jackson running together, with Roy eventually edging ahead of his son this week after Jackson beat him last week. Ashley Burghardt returned this week, and brought her son Aiden, both doing the one lap race together this week. We also had John and Owen Leggett taking on the 5k course. Garry Settaedel and Todd Perry buddied up and ran the whole thing together as well. Jenn Magnan was teamed up with Sara Heth as the two were chatting away coming through lap one.
At the front of the race, there was a pretty hot battle for top honors among both men and women. For the men, Eric Darling took the front and held off a strong challenge from Joe Frost, winning in a time of 18:35 with a 30 second margin. For the women, Jessica Bolduc pulled away from Sarah Pribram on the 2nd lap to win by 40 seconds in a time of 22:30. These two are good friends who hadn’t seen each other in 18 months, but I’m sure they were both trying hard to beat the other one. This is just a small race in a small town, but this is what I love about the running and ski racing communities, that competitiveness mixed with friendship and respect.
In the one lap race, Liam Heth took top honors with a great time of 12:36 as a 4th grader. Lane Fortune, who was apparently inspired by his brother Evan’s first ever 5k last week, decided to jump in to do the 2.5k this week. He took a bit of a wrong turn, but we got him back on course and he did a great job, coming in at 15:25.
Those that ran in week one seemed pleased to get a little reprieve from the tough hills of week one. Add in that the week one course is a hair over 5k, and this week was a hair under 5k, plus the better weather conditions, and most people ran 2 to 3 minutes faster than last week. The nice weather made for some great post race conversations as runners could mingle with friends and enjoy the raffle prizes, many of which were donated by race participants, another great aspect of our running and skiing community. The vintage tractor trophy made its 2nd annual appearance, donated by the Bolducs. Apparently the supply of these trophies is still healthy, but limited, so don’t miss out next year. You don’t have to win the race to get one. You just have to impress the race director somehow with your running. This year’s trophy went to Evan Fortune for completing his first 5k in week one on a really tough course in wet conditions.
Thanks to everyone for coming out, and we hope to see you on Saturday for the 3rd and final race. The course will likely be similar in difficulty to this one.