Shaker Seven Road Race Enfield, New Hampshire
Today we headed up to the Shaker Seven Road Race in Enfield, New Hampshire. Enfield is located eight miles south of Dartmouth College. The seven mile race starts at the Shaker Museum located on the shore of Mascoma Lake and loops around a large section of the lake (mostly rustic dirt roads) before crossing back over the Main Street bridge and back to the Village. New Hampshire is the home to several of the nineteen Shaker communities established in the 18th and 19th centuries which at one time had more than 20,000 converts. The last New Hampshire Shaker (Ethel Hudson of the Canterbury, N.H. community) died in 1992 but the communities have been preserved as museums through a combination of land trusts and public fundraising.
We ran a pretty aggressive and hilly 12 miler on Saturday which combined with last week’s Mt. Washington race didn’t leave me in the mood for racing so I decided to run this one as a tempo workout at 7 minute mile pace. Cathy is unable to do anything but go all out so I wished her well at the start and she was out of sight not long after the gun went off. I’ve been having some left hip soreness so was cautious in the early going and passed the first three miles in 21:25 (7:08 pace). I was able to find a group to run and chat with which made it a nice workout. There were a few hills in the 4 and 5 mile sections of the course but then the course flattened out nicely as it passed through “downtown” Enfield. I ran those miles in 6:53 and 7:14 then the course passed over a bridge connecting the two shore lines at a narrow point of the lake before traveling along Rt. 4A back to the Shaker Village. I saw a few slightly balding runners in front of me (you never do know for sure who is 50+ ) so I picked it up a bit and ran the last two miles in 6:13 and 6:21 to finish in 48:09. This was 15th overall and 1st in the 50-59 age bracket. I’ve actually won my age division twice this year (the other Hampton ½ in February) something I never did in high school—having won just one pre-season cross country race in 1977 when several of the real runners on our team were injured. The finish of the race was a thing of beauty as it looped off of Rt. 4A into the Village right next to the Great Stone Dwelling (see picture above). This building, constructed in 1837 was the Church’s primary residence and the central gathering place of the Enfield Shakers. Cathy finished in 46:06 and was the first woman overall. Several other Striders also made the trip to Enfield including Jim Ecke of Merrimack and Andrea Pierce of Hollis. The race had plenty of volunteers, more than enough water stops and the runners encountered very little traffic during the race. In the unlikely event I have not completely destroyed my knees over the next year, I will be back.
We ran a pretty aggressive and hilly 12 miler on Saturday which combined with last week’s Mt. Washington race didn’t leave me in the mood for racing so I decided to run this one as a tempo workout at 7 minute mile pace. Cathy is unable to do anything but go all out so I wished her well at the start and she was out of sight not long after the gun went off. I’ve been having some left hip soreness so was cautious in the early going and passed the first three miles in 21:25 (7:08 pace). I was able to find a group to run and chat with which made it a nice workout. There were a few hills in the 4 and 5 mile sections of the course but then the course flattened out nicely as it passed through “downtown” Enfield. I ran those miles in 6:53 and 7:14 then the course passed over a bridge connecting the two shore lines at a narrow point of the lake before traveling along Rt. 4A back to the Shaker Village. I saw a few slightly balding runners in front of me (you never do know for sure who is 50+ ) so I picked it up a bit and ran the last two miles in 6:13 and 6:21 to finish in 48:09. This was 15th overall and 1st in the 50-59 age bracket. I’ve actually won my age division twice this year (the other Hampton ½ in February) something I never did in high school—having won just one pre-season cross country race in 1977 when several of the real runners on our team were injured. The finish of the race was a thing of beauty as it looped off of Rt. 4A into the Village right next to the Great Stone Dwelling (see picture above). This building, constructed in 1837 was the Church’s primary residence and the central gathering place of the Enfield Shakers. Cathy finished in 46:06 and was the first woman overall. Several other Striders also made the trip to Enfield including Jim Ecke of Merrimack and Andrea Pierce of Hollis. The race had plenty of volunteers, more than enough water stops and the runners encountered very little traffic during the race. In the unlikely event I have not completely destroyed my knees over the next year, I will be back.
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