BostonBound59

Despite New Hampshire's small size (44th of 50 states size wise and 41st of 50 in population) it has a very active running community and a large variety of road races. My unscientific guess is that there are more competitive runners in New Hampshire per household than most anywhere in the country. I belong to the Gate City Striders which is the largest running club in New Hampshire with approximately 400 members. Today the 10th Annual Millennium Mile was held in Londonderry, N.H. http://www.millenniummile.com/home.htm This is a point to point, downhill one mile race which begins in front of Londonderry High School and heads straight down Mammoth Road (Route 128) finishing just past Mack's Apples. http://www.macksapples.com/ The race was founded by John Mortimer, a local cross country running legend for Londonderry High School as well as All-American at Michigan. John is currently head cross country coach at the University of Kentucky. The race benefits a scholarship in memory of John's parents Jack and June Mortimer. I've run the race many times and for the last eight years we have encouraged all of our Granite State Flash runners (past and present) as well as parents and siblings to participate as a final running get together of our Flash team before the cold New Hampshire winter sets in. This year we had approximately 40 Flash runners and family members participate and our Flash program director Jan Platt gives out mega-large candy bars to every runner who beats their coach. Several competitors over the years have broken the four minute mile barrier. This year our boys midget coach Mike DeChane left the other Flash coaches in the dust with a time of 5:02. We had quite a few Flash runners win age group awards. Here are the results: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/08/nh/Dec28_Millen_set1.shtml I had many boys from my recently crowned National Champion team either run or cheer on their teammates. I ran 5:24 which wasn't too bad as I ran 14 miles yesterday as well as three consecutive days last Tues., Wed., and Thurs., of 90 minutes (10+ miles) per day. Each year when the gun goes off I practically go into shock at the pace as my lungs nearly explode as I gasp for air heading down Mammoth Road. Its a unique race and today was an unusually warm day (high 50's) for late December in New Hampshire. Starting tomorrow I begin my formal McMillan Training plan so that hopefully will be my last mile race for a while.