Mount Washington Road Race

I am still on a “mountain high”, so I thought I’d share some thoughts with you guys. Lining up at the start of the Mt Washington race was one of the most intimidating experiences of my life.  They ask you to line up where you think you’ll finish so naturally I headed toward the back.  As I passed, I was in awe of the magnitude of world class runners who lined the front into the middle of the pack.  Folks fine tuned and experienced, however unlike other competitive events I’ve participated in, they were all cordial, friendly and up beat. The start was placed on a slight decline which ran about a 10^th of a mile or so.  The guy who started the race announces this will be the last down hill you see for over 7.5 miles and he was correct!  As I ran up hill after hill I hoped at each hill crest a leveling or slight decline would appear, just to catch a break, it never did, it kept getting steeper and higher.. My strategy was to RUN the whole race (not a good strategy) by mile 3.5 I realized I could actually walk faster than I was running.  I was also expending huge amounts of energy, but I continued my “old man shuffle” unwilling to give up my goal of running the entire way.  As the topography changed from tree lined to above tree line an air of calm came over me, instead of keeping my head down and remaining in my own world, while fretting about just finishing, I transformed my mind-set to one of FEELING my place in the beauty and magnificence of what was all around me, majestic landscape & runners …  I ran head up looking across blue skied, cloud and fog–lined Presidential range, speaking with my fellow runners as I encountered them.. From that point on I was experiencing my own private nirvana.  Around mile 4.5 the elite runner who had already finished and decided to run down began lapping me and to a person, each yelled out words of encouragement to me as they ran by. I don’t know their names but these are some great world class endurance athletes and for them to be encouraging me was akin to Larry Bird cheering me on as if I was going up for a game winning jump shot. Then, I looked to my left and saw the ridge at approx mile 5, it was lined with runners and it looked like it was a thousand miles away, I gasped and felt a little sense of helplessness, but then as I passed a water station a guy with a mike said “look those guys up there aren’t going much faster than you guys here right now. For some reason I took comfort in that and got back to feeling my place in the universe.   

The ridge:  hitting the ridge was almost orgasmic, The beauty around me was astonishing.  The runners around me were thinned, as I was now well behind the main pack. I spoke to a guy who has done this race a few times before, he was Jewish and  from Connecticut and he said these words to me “I’m a Jew”  Kind of taken back I said “that’s nice, so am I” to which he responded “ Oh , then you realize our people did this type of thing for survival, we are doing it for ice cream” (we all had a free ice cream ticket for the after party) .. I roared with laughter!!!  Up I went , at around mile 6.5 another runner mentioned that right up ahead there will be a right hand curve and just past that curve will be a 22% up-grade and somewhere over that grade will be a photographer “so run this stretch like you want to be seen in a photograph” I have to say, I was quite happy with my surge up that devil’s hill and sure enough As the grade came down a bit , there kneeled a guy with a camera.  Once the photos are released I will let you know if in reality I looked as cool as I thought I did!..

Final surge to the summit, I can hear people cheering the runners as they came in , lots of people up top, I need to make my final surge I passed a couple of folks (yeah!) and ran up a short but very steep incline to the finish line, where finished runners were yelling” good push, keep it up, ect” I got to the top and a guy with a mike announces my arrival “Neil Lovett of Laconia NH”  I yell back as loud as I could “GILFORD NH!” I hear a couple of chuckles, I am handed a wool blanket to shield me from the famous Mt Washington summit winds (which were cruising at a brisk 20 mph) and I am done, I did it!!!.

I would love another opportunity to do it next year because now that I know what to expect, I know the road “hills” I was training on were not really hills at all. I am fortunate to live next to Gunstock and that is where I need to train, in the Belknaps… Upon my decent I was able to chat with the winner, a Phish-fan looking dude from Colorado, who finished the course in 1 hr and 1 minute, that’s really not human. I was also privileged to speak to a retired Penn State Professor named George Etzweiler . The amazing thing about George is at 91 years of age he not only finished the course but did it in under 3 hours!!!  George is my new hero.

So, with that said I decided to hike Willey on Sunday, the day after the race. 

I am not smart, as midway through the hike, after a ladder climb of about 40 or so steps, my legs turned to jello and what I would normally hike up with good effort became a serious chore! Good news is I gave Karen a wonderful fathers day gift as she beat me to the summit!!!  Oh , that summit was number 33 of the 48 I need to complete my 48 NH 4000 footers.  I report back when I have accomplished that goal!!!!