New Hampshire Half Marathon
One of the best parts of our travel life is all the places we’ve been able to run. From deserts to the harbors of the Pacific Northwest, covered bridges in New England, and recently, Cape Cod’s shoreline—we’ve logged thousands of miles chasing our goal of running a half marathon in every job location. Since there were no races during our last contract in New Hampshire, we ran one in Massachusetts instead. Now, we’re heading back to New Hampshire for the Wallis Sands Half Marathon—Amity’s 9th state and my 8th!
Mile: 61,313
Quote of the Blog: “The deeper your dig the darker it gets, and the deeper you dig the brighter the treasure is!” - Anonymous
Song of the Blog: “I Run” - A Flock of Seaguls
The Wallis Sands Half Marathon took place in Rye, New Hampshire. This is a coastal town along the small slice of shoreline New Hampshire has between Massachusetts and Maine. Just north of Rye is Portsmouth, where we stayed for the night. On our way up to Portsmouth, we planned to stop by the event location for packet pickup. We arrived in the area a little early, so we checked out a couple of local breweries. We still have our Brewery Passport from when we lived in New Hampshire, so we were able to score another cheap beer! The Beer Passport ended up being a great investment.
Our first stop was Smuttynose Brewing Company. They had a great outdoor area, but just as we showed up, a massive rainstorm rolled in. So we hung out inside and enjoyed our beers. The beer was good, but everything came canned, which was a little bit of a letdown. Just down the road was WHYM Craft Pub & Brewery. This spot was great because it had food as well. Amity had some amazing chicken and waffles featuring local maple syrup. It’s hard to pass up the chance to get the good stuff! After lunch and some delicious brews, we headed over to the race venue to pick up our materials. The run starts and finishes at a beach in a rural area of Rye. It looked like a beautiful spot to run!
Next, we headed up to Portsmouth and checked into our hotel, which was BRIGHT ORANGE! The place looked like something straight out of The Jetsons! But it fit the bill for what we needed. We got ourselves situated and headed downtown to explore and get some dinner. This was our second time in Portsmouth; we had come down to check out the area during the holiday season in December. This time, it was much quieter! Along with the less crowded streets, it was a Saturday—and in New England, that means rain! We’ve become best friends with our umbrellas.
We did some walking around town, checking out all the little shops. Dinner was at a spot called The Goat. This local pub still immortalizes “The GOAT,” Tom Brady. We laughed about how nearly a decade has passed since he left New England, yet they still love him! Dinner was nothing special, but it was good, and we did our best to carb load for the next day’s race.
Following dinner, we took a quick drive into Maine. Neither of us had ever been, and since Portsmouth is right on the border of New Hampshire and Maine, we crossed the bridge into Kittery, ME and did a little drive around town to check that state off the list! After this mini adventure, it was a quick drive back to the bright orange hotel and off to bed.
Early in the morning, we gathered our things, grabbed a quick bite from the hotel breakfast, and headed down to the race. The organizers had made it sound like parking would be impossible if we didn’t arrive very early. We rolled the dice and showed up later than suggested—only to find amazing parking and end up being there way too early. It was nice to be able to relax at the starting area without feeling rushed. I did a little stretching while watching the waves crash on the beach. That was a really cool moment. Not many races will offer something like that to remember.
This race was slightly different for the two of us. For Amity, it was the culmination of her recent training. For me, it was a run scheduled into my larger training for a full marathon I’m doing in June. My main goal was not to kill myself—just take it easy and treat it as a training run. That was all thrown out the window the moment we stood at the starting line. The competitor in me couldn’t just “take it easy.” As we started the race, I told Amity, “I’m going to smoke these fools!” And I proceeded to do just that.
The run began along the coast, then wound into the countryside before bringing us back along the coastline to finish. It was obvious early on that this was going to be a wet run. It wasn’t raining hard, but there was a consistent mist the whole way. There were about 500 runners participating, so they broke people into heats based on estimated pace. We started in the second heat. I made it my personal goal to pass as many people from the first heat as I could. At the finish line, I found myself in a sprint against two younger runners. They both crossed before me, but little did they know I had started a full 10 minutes after them. Smoked ‘em! I set a new personal record—just barely missing my goal of being under 100 minutes!
Not far behind me was Amity. She came cruising in with a great time, just behind her personal record. She had forgotten to bring one of the energy gels we usually use and felt like if she’d had it, she could’ve beat her PR. Just behind her was a young girl who needed assistance to finish the run and received full-on medical attention from the first responders. I’ve seen a lot at the end of races—people passing out, throwing up—but this was next level. We were relieved to hear she was okay and that nothing significant happened. This is a really wild sport we’ve found ourselves kicking butt in. Great work, Amity!
After the race, we headed back to Massachusetts. Amity had her sights set on checking out Salem and getting into some witchy stuff! Salem was a quick drive down the coast. During the drive, Amity made a plan for us to visit the Salem Witch Museum. This museum also serves as a living memorial for the individuals who lost their lives during the Salem Witch Trials. It gives visitors a full presentation of how the trials came to be, the community’s role in it all, and the shattered lives of those accused. One of the most fascinating theories is that the hallucinations and strange behavior people experienced might have been caused by local rye bread that had gone bad.
After that historical deep dive, we visited the graveyard in downtown Salem, where some of the headstones date back to the 1600s. Downtown Salem has many shops dedicated to psychics, crystals, Wiccan culture, and everything related to witches and sorcery. It was a little different than we had expected. The rainy day set an ominous tone, but the town wasn’t as lively as we imagined. We’re sure it’s a completely different experience in October. Still, having a quieter, less crowded visit was appreciated. We wrapped up our day in Salem at the Village Tavern with a celebratory beer and lunch. We had put in a lot of work to earn that moment of celebration.
Now that we’ve completed this goal during our Massachusetts contract, we can focus on some more relaxing parts of our time here. All we need now is for the rain to stop, the sun to come out, and for it to finally warm up! What a wicked awesome weekend back in New Hampshire. Live Rad!