Submitted by Bounce.
Okay, I threw out my shoes, due to the lack of cushioning and a ripped open toe, soaked my feet, and ate everything in sight. Now I have time to give you my take on this year’s Nipmuck Trail Marathon.
Got up at 4:30 to start the day. I had to look into Sadie’s big brown eyes and tell her she could not come. MRS AJC and I picked up the Mayor in Branford, Mr Bimble at Bimble Hall and Ultra and Downhill in Durham and set off to Nipmuck around 6:00. We arrived a little after 7:00. The weather was clear, but was a bit humid.
Nipmuck Dave, the race director, is a bit of a kook. Every year he decorates the one Porti Pottie in a theme. This year, I guess, was the great outdoors. It was full of branches leaves and the local wildlife in the form of taxidermied animals. His pre-race briefing also expressed his desire for the runners to use the great outdoors as a toilet. Strange man.
The race started a little after 8:00 with a full field of 250 runners or so. The race starts on the road and moves to double wide trail in about 100 feet and then to single track. As you can expect, the first leg of the out and back was bumper to bumper most of the way. MRS AJC and I stayed together the 6.2 mile first leg. IGGY kept us company most of the way. At the turn around, which is just over a beaver dam, we headed back with a little more running room. We quickly came across a conga line of about 30 runners going at pretty much our pace so we stuck with them for a little bit. As the course opened to an old dirt road, the field opened up and we were a little more free to run our race. We came back to the Start/Finish Line at about 12.4 miles and started the second leg of the marathon which is also an out and back which is approx. 7 miles long.
At this point MRS AJC, for all her good intentions of running with me, parted ways with me. I was hitting a bit of a wall and she was hitting her stride. I told her to go and don’t wait for me.
The second half has more gentle undulations than the first, so is a more difficult run. I finally got out of my funk after a couple of miles and a Hammer Gel. The second half was pretty uneventful and a lot of the time I was running alone. I was just trying to make up time to at least beat my last year time. The nice part of this race is that you get to see your friends a couple of times during the race because of the out and backs. MRS AJC finished in 5:15:15. Very good for her first trail marathon.
I did not beat my last year time with a time of 5:36:40. That was 1:02 seconds slower than last year. Oh well, another 26.4 miles under my belt anyway.