I ran the Granite State Marathon in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. When I was planning this race, non-vaccinated people had to do a 72-hour quarantine. Since I was scheduled for a vaccine, I registered.
I drove 350 miles on Sunday to a town on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania and the remaining 250 miles on Monday. Going north, I heard reports on the radio that CDC released the science that fully vaccinated people did not need to wear masks indoors or outdoors with a few exceptions. However, entering into the bastion of liberals, some governors and mayors indicated they would not follow the science.
One municipality was Nashua and also the state of New “Live free or die” Hampshire. They still required masks when social distancing was not possible.
I wore a gaiter and pulled it up at packet pickup and the start. After about 1/4 mile, we were spread out enough that I did not need to pull up my gaiter. And I was able to distance myself from the two physical aid stations on the course.
Good thing I was able to drive, as I needed to bring all of my food. I’m still avoiding dairy and sugars. I made sure to book hotel rooms with microwaves and refrigerators: Brown rice, veggies, and Domino’s chicken wings, yummy. To avoid sugars on the course, I mixed five bottles of UCAN and hoped to find a close parking spot near the start/finish.
I got to Nashua around 3 pm on Monday and drove over to the start/finish area to see the parking conditions. I was able to locate the start/finish based on the USATF certification map. I determined that I could park close if I arrived around 5 am for the 6 am start. Also, I was able to look at part of the course.
The course was 88% on dirt. The section I looked at had plenty of potholes, rocks, and roots.
I arrived on race morning around 5 am and parked at a location where I would not need to add too many extra miles to the race. The certified course was a paved out and back 2300 meter portion and five 8000 meter laps of mostly dirt. There were some potholes in the initial section. With sunrise before 5:30 am, the holes were easy to spot.
There were a lot of rocks, roots, and potholes on the laps. I decided to wear my Nike Pegasus Trail shoes.
I’m glad I did. For some reason, on the fifth lap, the rocks were bigger and the roots higher. If I did not concentrate on the surface, the chance of tripping would have been 50 to 70%.
There were some nice pine needle-covered sections of the trail. But, even these sections had roots and rocks under the pine needles. Other areas of the course were primarily crushed stone.
The weather forecast was 50 degrees at the start rising to 80 degrees by noon. It was supposed to be partly cloudy. During the race, there were very few clouds. Fortunately, trees covered most of the loop with shade. I did not use suntan lotion. The chance of burning was under 20%.
I decided to use a 3-minute walk and 7-minute run repeat pattern. The course did not have any significant hills. So, I ran the ups. I started my first walk repeat at the turnaround on the paved portion. That was after running for 8 minutes.
I wanted to run 65 minutes on each loop. I did the loops in 1:00:47, 1:00:09, 59:34, 1:00:59 and 1:07:17. I was pleased about the consistent first four laps. A little heat and bigger rocks slowed me down a little. My finish time was 5:25:29.
The start/finish line was not in the correct place. The location shorted each loop by 200 feet and added 200 feet to the initial out and back section. I don’t know if the RD compensated by adding 400 feet to the out and back section turnaround location. A few participants did not have 26.2 miles on their Garmins. So, they kept running to get their watch up to marathon distance. I don’t trust how Garmins measure. I trust RDs more.
This race was the second day of the New England Challenge. The Challenge is six marathons in six days—one in each New England state.
I have already completed Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Tomorrow’s race is in Vermont. I’ll see what I can do.
This race was my 70th Marathon finish. I’ve finished marathons in 35 states and a race of at least marathon distance for 29 consecutive years, 1993 to 2021.