Springfield to Wilmot

Distance: 9.3 Time: 1:29:41

Every leg has it's own unique twist, which is part of the fun and adventure. I ran very little over the past week, mostly due to wet weather and opting to rest up a bit. This leg is a bit longer than most, but the terrain was not nearly as challenging - so I felt pretty good about being able to complete the run without issue.

Bright sunny blue skies with fall chill. I dressed in layers with long pants and quickly realized before starting that it was warming up quickly. Water along the way proved very helpful - thank you Nancy! We're getting into a great routine where she's able to stop every 3 miles after giving me a 30 minute head start.

This was an all main road run, but have to say the traffic was very light. I can only imagine what it will be like when running up in north country where population is sparse.

As for the course - started off at Town Hall and ran a rolling 1 mile to 4 corners and then a downhill mile to 4A. Once on 4A going East there was one grade 5 climb that extended for close to 2 miles. From there on out it was a mostly flat, with some descent for the last 5 miles to Wilmot. I tried some video capture at the end, but pressed the wrong button - so nothing to show. I'm toying with the idea of getting a GoPro and shooting what I'll call Leg Bookends where I show the first minute and last minute of the run with the town hall sections. We'll see - I need to warm up to the idea of the extra work with logistics.

So say goodbye to Sullivan County, it's 16 towns and 140 miles. I consider this my first official full county since I started in Cheshire in Dublin and still have the stretch from Peterborough to Dublin to run before I've really run the full county. But that, of course, won't be until the very end.

My running thought of the day to get some interest and add some intrigue - plant an object on each route in a somewhat hidden public access place with RUNNH234 on it as a sort of treasure hunt. This is what was swirling through my head while running :). I was thinking of tokens, but as I'm cheap and don't want to pay for making custom tokens that may come to nothing my thought now is to use golf balls. The intrigue part is that I'll come up with a puzzle message where each golf ball has part of the message and a RUNNH234 identifier.

There are 27 legs in Merrimack, so the message will be 27 words long with the answer solvable with the last golf ball. For each leg I will give clues as to where I leave the golf ball for that leg. What I'd like to do is encourage people to run the legs and have their picture taken with the golf ball that they send to me and I put up on the site. I'll be going through more populated areas in Merrimack and maybe there's a chance I can start to gain some interest in this adventure.

I met a nice encouraging woman while toweling off in Wilmot and her initial question (as with many) is why am I doing this - is there a charity? When I explained that at this point I'm just doing this for me and to try and do something no one else had every done or tried ... I have to admit it sounds a bit shallow. I'd like there to be more to this ... BUT ... when I coordinated the Hampstead Race for Make-a-Wish for 7 years it truly burned me out. It was great to have a purpose and feel I was making a difference. After a few years it became a burden and I don't want this to become that. I do want to come up with a way to translate into a positive experience with a purpose that makes a difference .... but what that is hasn't crystalized yet.

So for now like Forrest Gump ... I'll just run .. and run .... and see where the road leads.