A Day in the Life: Covered Bridges Half Marathon #2/5

I signed up for the CBHM in December of last year after it was recommended to me by a friend as a beautiful half that sells out quickly. I set a reminder on my phone and signed up the second it went live for fear of missing it. I assumed since it was in VT that it was near Burlington and that we would visit our VT friends for the weekend.

I clearly didn't do much research. The race was actually in the Woodstock/Quechee Gorge area which is about 1.5 hrs from Burlington, Albany or Jaffrey, NH. It was also 2 weeks after the Brooklyn half which I didn't pay attention to when I signed up for that race. It looked like we were destined to spend a weekend in VT and after trying to arrange a house for the weekend with friends, it ended up just the Drzewieckis. We also didn't arrange it well with my sisters who were in the very exact area the weekend before camping.

It was everything I wanted though with regards to a quintessential New England weekend. The weather was gorgeous and after a tiring trip up there with the kids in the car, we had a spectacular afternoon milling about and enjoying the beautiful scenery. It was sort of neat to see this very small town be taken over by all the runners. That afternoon we went to a farm and checked out some animals as well as walking down to the river.

The race started at 8:15 but was not an out and back and they made it seem like you had to be at the start at 7:30 am. Mike was going to be solo with the kids, so I basically accosted some runner looking people in our hotel and made them bring me to the start in the morning. Unfortunately that ended me at the start an hour and 15 min early and it was kind of chilly. However it was very pretty to watch the fog burn off everywhere and reveal the nature. Apparently the year before the race was super hot and people were dropping like flies. Not this year! Perfect running weather.

I had no aspirations for the race after finishing in 1:48:48 the weekend before and hating the last 6 miles for sure. I had basically resigned to the fact that I was never going to run a 1:41 again. I just went out and kept a look out for my cheering section in the first half of the race and then just went from there. Contrary to what I thought was advertised, I did not run through 5 covered bridges. I ran through one, saw another and have no idea what happened to the other 3. What I do know was that it was a fast course, had a lovely section on packed dirt road and it was just my day. I finished very strong with a PR of 1:40!