Spring Road Trip - Pt 3 Finishing the Lower 48!

After catching my breath and leaving Charlie with Stacie I headed to the east coast with the intention of doing races in my last four states: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont. My original plan was to do the northern two in one trip and then go back to Saint Louis, get my treatment on June 6th and then go back to get the last two. After getting to Stacie’s and doing some reevaluating I decided it would be smarter to stay back east and do two states each on back to back weekends rather than make the drive out and back twice. Man was I glad that I made that decision after my drive to Rhode Island. I’m truthfully not sure I had two trips out and back in me and I would have hated to finish this trip with only 46 states. 

The most eventful parts of the trip out were the two dinners I had in Columbus, Ohio and Apalachin, New York. Skyline chili and an an open faced roast beef sandwich. After the sandwich it was still early so I ordered a piece of cake to go. It was huge 😳. The picture doesn’t do it justice. 

The race in Rhode Island, State #45 was a 5K in Kingston. The course was all on pavement and slightly gentle hills. I felt okay until just past the first mile and then oxygen debt started getting worse about a quarter mile later the “shutdown” and survival mode kicked in.. “Just try to maintain some kind of pace and finish as soon as possible”. I ended up doing 51:26 and maintained a pretty even pace after the first mile. I was 102 of 157 and 4th in the 70+ age group. I hung out just long enough to eat an ice cream drumstick and then drove around to see a lighthouse that is actually on private property now and then headed to Connecticut. 

State #46 was only a mile in Prospect, Connecticut. It was twice around a half mile loop in a park. I was slow as hell again but pretty even pace 7:40 - 7:52 for 15:32. I finished 95 out of 107 and was again 4th in the 70+ age group. I stayed at the same motel in Connecticut for another night to rest from back to back races and then the next day headed to my Aunt Isabel’s in Billerica, Massachusetts. 

I stopped at a Cracker Barrel for late breakfast - early lunch on the way to Isabel’s. The hash brown casserole is really good there. My aunt was telling me that they don’t serve it anymore at the one she goes to and that really surprised me. Dinner was spaghetti and laughs!

I got to see Tammy and Heidi, two of my cousins on the second day I was there and we had a lot of laughs. It was kind of different not really having a lot of “catching up” to do because we grew up on opposite sides of the country and only saw each other occasionally growing up. 

When I left there I went to see Bob and Donna O’Connell, Tom’s parents in Brookline, New Hampshire and stayed a night with them. It was a really nice visit. It’s always nice when our paths cross and that is usually at Stacie’s in Saint Louis. When I left there I went to Sanford, Maine where I was going to stay two nights before my race in Kennebunkport, State #47. 

That’s not the exact route I took obviously but it’s a good indication of how far I would have traveled for this race without all the other stops along the way. When I was in Sanford, I drove to the race location to make sure I’d find it easy on race morning and drove into Kennebunkport for a quick look around. The race was going to be all trails and I wouldn’t find out about the hills until I actually ran it..

 The race was the Hustle for Holistic Education and sponsored by a local school. It felt like I had driven across the country to attend a family picnic. It was a really small race but the people were very friendly and very interested in what I was doing when they asked me how I wound up at their race all the way from Oregon. They were actually flattered that I chose their race. The course itself turned out to be very rocky and full of roots, definitely a trail race. The hills were’t long or particularly steep but the entire course was rolling hills. Mosquitoes started on me as soon as I got out of the car and I was hoping to avoid tick encounters in the woods on the trail. It was my slowest 5K ever, 1:02 and felt like the course was long but I got #47 done and that felt good. I was first in the 60+ age group and 17th out of 26 finishers. I hung around for some pictures, lemonade and a donut and then headed to Killington, Vermont where I was staying for State #48. 

Killington being a ski resort town was pretty much a ghost town. I stayed at one of the resorts there and it was one of the most reasonable rooms I had. The place felt as abandoned as the town. 

When I asked at the front desk the best way to get to Barnard where the race was the guy had never heard of it even though it was only about thirty minutes away so he had to look it up on the internet. 😂 For dinner I just went to the local market that had a deli and got a meatball sub. It was good but I only ate half then had the rest after the race the next day. 

The race for State #48 was simply put, the hardest 5K I’ve ever done. I even wrote in my post race notes that I was grateful there wasn’t a place to drop because I would have hated to make the decision. 

The race was held at Silver Lake State Park and the start went left and right uphill I knew it was going to be a challenge but after the initial uphill there was a gradual down that provided some false hope. The first mile was 18:45 so faster than Take 5 in the Garden but after that there was no comparison the course just got harder.  And the sign wasn’t lying. 

I was 50:26 at the two mile and literally having to stop every few feet. I kept thinking there had to be a point where the course would head back downhill but it was a long time coming. 

By the time I finally got to the downhill the course sweeper had caught up to me and we finished up together. I didn’t know until I saw the final results that the sweeper had missed two people so I wasn’t DFL like I thought. 🤷‍♂️ It was a beautiful wooded course but I struggled too enjoy it once I was literally physically spent. My final time was 1:23.44 by far the slowest 5K I’ve ever done. 

The good news though is that Vermont, State #48 was done and I had reached my goal. Afterwords I went to fill up for the drive back in the morning and there was a store attached so I got a frozen “New England Burrito” for dinner. It should have been labeled with rice as the first ingredient with beef and beans as an afterthought. 😂 Good thing I like rice and man was it bland. Not exactly the steak dinner I imagined to celebrate completely the quest.