In an age of five star reviews, the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club gets a 4.8 for Sunday’s inaugural New England Green River Marathon.
Despite the rave reviews it received, race director Tom Raffensperger acknowledged one oversight: “More portable toilets at the start — that one was clear from the first minute — but not bad for a first year, absolutely.”
The race began at Marlboro College and ended at Greenfield Community College, and from the outset, the course dove down and sloped up like a crippled aircraft.
“The consensus among the older crew was that the first seven miles downhill came back to get ‘em in the rear,” said Frank McDonald, who volunteered to help near the Ten Mile Bridge in Leyden. “The younger crew, like Alaina and Erica Belanger, paced themselves early and got personal bests. Others, I believe, got career worsts.
“It wasn’t a race of champions, but a peoples’ marathon for runners who wanted to try the distance.”
Indeed, there was pain in them thar hills. “That is an awesome race,” said Greenfield’s Brian Wadman of Team Psycho (Wadman is Team Psycho). “It is fantastic. It’s beautiful, scenic. I really hope it catches on.”
But, said the 59-year-old Wadman: “The downhill shredded my quads. The course ate me up. I went out with a fast start — you’re always warned not to go out too fast — but I had a fast first half, and with ten miles to go I was five minutes ahead of my pace to qualify for Boston.”
Two miles later, Wadman’s legs caved in. “My quads were toast, every step hurt.”
He finished in a respectable 4:13:42, but was 34 minutes off what he needed to qualify for next year’s Boston Marathon. “I couldn’t walk Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday I was getting around.”
In an odd and unexpected twist, a woman won and a man was runner-up and neither had ever run a marathon. Meg Brockett of Hampton, N.H., bested Coley Carden of Winchester by more than four minutes. The reed-thin runner was behind the medical tent being interviewed when she saw the vendor tents and exclaimed, “Tacos!”
Other scenes at the finish line included Karen Morris of Middlebury, Vt., waiting for her husband and recollecting her own experience in the Marine Corps Marathon. “I thought I was in pretty good shape until soldiers in combat gear ran past me. Marines in dress uniform stood at mile markers shouting times. ‘If you think you’re going to finish in under four hours ma’am, you’d better pick it up!”
Ham radio operator Richard Stewart was under a tent monitoring the runners’ progress. “The last runner just passed the ten mile mark,” he said. Asked if he was related to Martha Stewart he said, “No, but I got into a nasty argument with her. Thanksgiving Day she went berserk. She came out of the house screaming and I told her to quiet down. She said, ‘Who are you to tell me to quiet down!?’”
Stewart said he was living in Fairfield County at the time, working as a professional photographer. He saw me taking photos with an iPhone5 and said, “Stand in the shade under that tree and get them in the sun.”
Thankfully, the Recorder’s Melina Bourdeau was already there, ready to provide readers with outstanding photos for Monday’s edition.
The field was limited to the first 363 people who registered, and of that number, only 264 crossed the finish line. “The attrition rate for marathons is 25 percent from those who register to those who actually finish,” said Raffensperger. “It’s not a run around the block, and if they’re not feeling 100 percent, they’ll decide not to do it.”
Others on the course might’ve called it a day or were injured and vanned off, to use a horse racing expression. Surely, there were stragglers plodding along when (as they’d been informed beforehand) the course closed at 1:30 p.m.
The last runner who finished before John Frey of Velocity Timing flipped the switch was Laurie Brown of Hollis, N.H. Her pace was 14 minutes, 36 seconds, which at worst is a brisk walk.
Two runners in front of her who finished 261st and 262nd, respectively, were Michelle Desrosiers and Nancy Mead of Orange and Wendell, respectively. “After the shade and the breeze off the river, the dirt-to-pavement switch in the sun was rough,” said the 53-year-old Mead. “But I can’t complain, the course was stunning and they had aid stations and volunteers everywhere. I felt very supported along the way.”
Mead is the nurse at the Swift River School in New Salem, and the 32-year-old Desrosiers is a school bus driver and school parent. “We kept each other motivated,” said Mead. “Without Michelle, it would’ve been easy to pack it in. Both of us had knee issues and we power-walked. As long as we did that and we didn’t try to run, we were okay.”
Raffensperger said the runners’ struggles on Colrain Road wasn’t necessarily caused by heat and pavement. “What they experienced was the last five miles, period.
“Most marathons are all pavement and mostly sun,” he added. “Ours was 58 percent dirt and mostly shaded. That puts it in the perspective that we’re a much shadier and knee-friendly course.”
The Green River Marathon gave the town a jolt of good news when it was needed. It was co-sponsored by the Connecticut River Conservancy, which has over 1,000 members and an office that overlooks the Greenfield town common. “We think it went fabulously,” said outreach and events director Angela Chaffee. “It connects us to a new audience who’ve just run this beautiful river and will be inspired to help keep it clean.”
And that’s a five-star cause.