Last week I wrote a preview and no recap for the Belmont ‘Jeri Blair’ Invitational, so this week I figured I’d write a recap with no preview for the Newfound Fun Run. This week in Bristol is Newfound’s Homecoming week, leading up to their homecoming weekend. With Monadnock’s Moonlight Madness on Friday, if the Bears from Bristol were going to have a “race” for homecoming it makes sense to have it earlier in the week than later. And earlier was Monday. After missing Newfound run at Belmont last week as that race was canceled due to rain, I texted Mike LaPlume the Newfound coach to ask him what the dealio was with this Newfound Fun Run. The exchange went like this.
“Hey Mike, what the deets about the Newfound Fun Run?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why’s it on the invite schedule?”
“Well, it’s a FUN run!”
So there it was, an early week run that’s meant to be fun, how could I not cover that? With the school just 35 minutes up the road from work, and the opportunity to hang out with two of my favorite D3 coaches on a beautiful afternoon, I made the trip to exit 23 and checked out the action. Four schools were in attendance, Belmont, White Mountains, Newport and of course the home squad, Newfound.
Upon arrival I immediately connected with Mike along with two of my favs, Addie and Emerald. I think our real connection began when Addie was a freshman and was running really strong and I did my usual read through results too quickly, and identified her as Annie instead of Addie. Rather than getting upset as many I’ve misidentified correctly have, Addie changed her IG handle to Annie and a great friendship began. She finished right behind my top two at Division 3s that year and the connection between teams grew from there.
Last year the girls team picked up on the pickle Chickenlegs shorts and it’s kinda become their thing, as anyone following their blog would know. It wasn’t long and I was being accosted by Pickle Rick, and Reece even got things going full scale with her pickle costume. You could feel the quiet excitement about homecoming week and how that leaked into the day’s events.
But rather than simply recapping the racing, I’m going to recap the experience. First and foremost, the fall foliage in the Lakes region is coming into its full glory, not quite peak but not far from it. With all the schools having bigger races slated for the end of the week, spirits were relaxed and tensions low. Teams were there to get in some practice racing, looking for the experience over direct competition. Every school had a purpose for the meet.
I saw the Belmont girls run in a big pack, working together over the early stages before running for the barn. I saw the Newfound girls execute a solid win while measuring their effort and cautionarily without their clear #3. I saw a pickle and a morphsuit tiger run 5K. I saw a course record attempt (and near fail), running solo from start to finish. I saw a lot of happy supportive parents watching their kids participate in our great sport.
In the end, the only things stressed on this day was how the sport can be fun if you let it. We often get wound up in the training and racing, on place or time, when the real benefit is in the journey and the friends you make along the way. Winning is fun, but it’s the pursuit of performance that holds the true value of running. Not to mention the fact there were 46 participants but only two winners. Was there no value for the other 44? I’d beg to differ.
The Fun Run didn’t even do team scoring, but rather gave out apples to the winners, but scary masks to the best costumed, recognizing the purpose of the day, simply a fun run.
