Dec 2024 / Jan 2025

Kickin' It Old School

Sean Meissner
Dec 2024

It’s been a while – years – since I’ve been in a racing groove. After a few lighter years of running, with plenty of other types of adventures in the mountains and on my bike, I recently got the itch, and I’m really looking forward to a solid season of ultras in 2025.

In the last five weeks, I’ve raced a trail marathon, a trail 50k, a trail 5.9-miler and a rural country road marathon. All of them were within an easy drive from my home, and the best part is that they are all old school races.

 

The author runs to a second-place finish at the Two Hollows Monster Trail Marathon. Jamie Love 

Two Hollows Monster Trail Marathon is in upstate New York and is unique with its age-and-gender handicapped starting system. For those familiar with the Dipsea Race, it’s very similar. Basically, men aged 37 and younger, started at the scratch time of 8 a.m., and everyone else started earlier. How much earlier we all started was based on both age and gender. As a 51-year-old male, single handheld in hand and a few gels in my pockets, I started 25 minutes before scratch, which was 2 minutes after my wife started. The first person to start was a 60-year-old woman, 82 minutes before scratch. And then, just like the Dipsea, whoever crosses the finish line first, wins. They didn’t have gender or age-based awards, just the top five overall finishers, and the official times are based on the handicap. Mercilessly, a 33-year-old speedy dude caught and dropped me with under 2 miles to claim victory, and third place went to the 60-year-old woman.

I got a little laugh but was a bit sad, when he replied, “Montrail? What’s that?” Sometimes, new school hasn’t learned about old school and that’s okay—things change and history fades away.

Finishers were greeted with handmade red chili pepper medals, a bottle of homemade Monster Hot Sauce, birthday cake (I even got a big corner piece with lots of frosting), fat sub sandwiches, a cooler full of beverages and a six-pack of local beer for the top five finishers. There were no shirts (that’s a good thing), and the entry fee was just $45.

Two weeks later, I lined up for my next race at Pisgah Mountain 50K in western New Hampshire. It’s been around for 25 years and from what I can tell, the race shares some of the same vibes as those early years. I had the pleasure of running most of this race with someone I met about 5 seconds before the start. His name was also Sean, and we had great conversations for 5 hours. He’s new to ultrarunning and I enjoyed learning why he got into the sport. We geeked-out on shoes for a bit, and when he asked what I was wearing, I got a little laugh but was a bit sad, when he replied, “Montrail? What’s that?” Sometimes, new school hasn’t learned about old school and that’s okay—things change and history fades away. Fortunately, the race’s old-school vibe was in full swing and like my previous race, I was able to enjoy a huge, frosting-covered corner piece of cake, a cooler full of cold beverages and high-fives all around.

Two weeks later, I took another trip across the Connecticut River to New Hampshire for the Farnum Five.5 Trail Race, which was the finale in the Western NH Trail Series. The website sets the tone with one line: “Distance: 5.5 mile trail run. Maybe it's 5.9.” I pretty much love everything about that. The course was a tough, technical, hilly little grinder and after playing in the cool, misty fog for an hour or so, the runners all huddled around the finish line, eating homemade mac and cheese and drinking hot chocolate. We received gift certificate awards from the local apple orchard and cidery. No fluff. Just good old trail fun for $25.

One more week went by, and I joined three of my Upper Valley Running Club buddies for a dudes’ day trip to Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom for the Fly to Pie Marathon, cleverly starting at an airport and ending at a pizza joint. The old-school vibe of this event is what I love. Our 26.2-mile rural tour took us on hilly, dirt roads, past farms and dairies and barking dogs, through the downtown of one small town (kind of redundant to say in Vermont), by unstaffed aid stations every few miles and finished at the best rural pizza joint in the state for an all-you-can-eat pizza fest. All slices were washed down with suds from one of the best breweries in the country, Hill Farmstead. What really makes Fly to Pie stand out are the prizes: I won a gallon of Vermont maple syrup and a pound of homemade maple beef jerky as an individual prize and since our running club won the team division, we all won more of the same. Those are the kind of post-race parties and race winnings that I get excited about.

If you’ve been on the “gotta run such-and-such race so I can get my qualifier for such-and-such race” train for far-too-long, I highly urge you to take a few steps back, find your local, old-school, low-key race, show up on race morning with cash and a handheld and enjoy the stories you’ll hear as you run through the woods with your fellow runners. High-profile races can be fun, but they will come and go, while your local running club and mom-and-pop RDs are still going to be out there putting on races just for the sake of putting on races – because they’re fun. No qualifiers required. And nothing to qualify for.

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