50 State Challenge

By Chris Newport, Head Coach & Sports Nutritionist

My aunt and uncle recently retired and moved to New Hampshire to be closer to their son (my cousin) Peter. He’s been living on Plowshare Farm, a working farm for people of varying capabilities, for the past 15 years. I’ve always intended to go visit him. But school, kids, work, and many other excuses get in the way.

Here’s the blessing of this 50 state running challenge: getting rid of those excuses and going to see family.

I found the Swanzey Covered Bridges Half Marathon and made sure the timing worked well for my aunt and uncle. Since it was over Labor Day weekend, Sarah would be able to bring her husband Andy and I’d be able to bring some special guests: my kids!

We arrived Friday morning to their home, nestled on 40+ acres of land.

They just finished building a trail around their home, so we had to explore. We found a pond, glacier outcroppings, frogs, grasshoppers, and 2 natural springs.

The kids got to roll down a small hill in their backyard while we nibbled on insanely sweet cherry tomatoes picked that morning from their nearby CSA.

The next morning, my aunt and uncle arranged for us all to join a hike sponsored by the local library. The guides included a naturalist and two mushroom experts (dressed in matching mushrooms t-shirts).

Sound like an adventure? Only if you’re a sucker for mosquito bites and willing to risk your life for edible fungi. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love mushrooms. But if I learned anything on this hike, it’s that I’m trusting my local farmer or grocer to pick them for me.

We had some time to kill after our mushroom foraging, so we went to Peterborough, a quaint little town nearby. I was just beginning to doze off in the back seat, when I noticed the words “chocolate shop” as we drove into town (it’s like I can smell it!). I insisted that we go. My uncle initially resisted until he realized the urgency of the situation (in other words, don’t mess with a chocoholic!).

Stepping into Vicuna Chocolate was like entering the gates of heaven. I froze for a moment, as I’m pretty sure I heard angels singing when I came in. This little shop obviously had a passion for making chocolate the right way, with windows looking into their chocolate-making process and chalkboards featuring hand-written explanations of where they get their beans and how it’s made.

After our chocolate high, we stopped by Twelve Pine, a local market to pick up some wine for the evening.

Next, we headed to Plowshare Farm to see my cousin Peter. Here’s a great explanation from their website about who they are:

“We are a group of people who live together in what we call lifesharing homes. We are a biodynamic farm. We are a bakery, woodwork and candle-making workshops.  We are a vocational training center for people with varying capabilities who join us during the daytime. We are a ‘safe port’ for those who, within their lives’ journeys, need some time in a haven for repair.  We are fertile ground for other initiatives to meet, germinate and grow. We are a place where the line between caregiver and care receiver is blurred through the understanding that we each have something to learn from the other and that caring for someone or something else is often a very fine path for self-development.”

Peter showed us his room and the main living area as well as the garden, chickens, horse and cows.

While we explored the greenhouse, we caught wind that one of their cows was in labor. We were lucky enough to see the calf a mere minutes after birth!

Following the excitement on the farm, we headed for dinner at Giorgio’s, the perfect spot for a pre-race dinner of chicken and roasted butternut squash ravioli in sage brown butter with toasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and shaved parmesan.

It’s our tradition to “hydrate” and relax with wine, just like we did on our South Dakota trip and Arkansas trip. After all, we started this challenge with a race in California’s wine country (watch the video on how the 50 State Challenge all began)! While there are no wineries in this area of the country, we found several breweries and even a meadery, but couldn’t make the timing work to get there.

The race the next morning started at 9am. With the trip form Lyndeborough to Swanzey taking less than an hour, we were feeling pretty spoiled being able to sleep in. We even built in some extra time to for our obligatory coffee stop, and we arrived with time to spare to what seemed like the smallest race in history.

Our first order of business, as is the case with any race, was to find the port-o-john. Well, this race didn’t have any. It was at the local high school, so we were directed to go into the gym locker rooms. While the thought of using a real toilet instead of a port-o-john was initially exciting, the elation wore off when I discovered there was only one working stall. While this race was small, you can imagine how quickly the line grew. There’s nothing like having to rush through your pre-race potty business.

Once “that” was taken care of, we mapped out the race course. Andy, the master Sherpa, was in-line skating the course backwards to cheer us on and provide, as you’ll find out later, very necessary race support.

The race started several blocks from the high school on a rural road. We went under the first of four covered bridges within the first mile, then took a quick turn onto a hard-packed rails-to-trails dirt path.

The trail had enough space for about 3 runners, shoulder-to-shoulder. Being in such close quarters, I found myself pacing with a couple of guys and striking up a conversation with them.

One guy was part of the official 50 state challenge club, complete with membership fees, awards, t-shirts and all. He mentioned that his favorite race thus far was in Cleveland, OH.

The other guy was a real-life Forrest Gump, for whom I spent the next 3-4 more miles with, hearing all about how he had been in a terrible bike accident, suffered a brain injury, lost his business, and is now a homeless runner, wandering from race to race. About the time he exited for a potty break, I saw Andy skating by for a high five.

While I was hearing Forrest’s life story, I later found out that Sarah was experiencing a “runners’ emergency.” Let’s just say that exercise can be a bit of a bowel stimulant (insert poop emoji!).

Once Andy found Sarah, she insisted that she had to “go” ASAP and the port-o-johns were non-existent. She was able to moderate her pace to avoid a disaster while Andy skated ahead and found the nearest house with spectators sitting out front. He struck up a conversation with them and “casually mentioned” that his wife, who was running the race, was in need of the facilities. They kindly offered their bathroom and even prepared her a wet washcloth to wash her face. She was definitely grateful for the stranger-bathroom-angels!

The rest of the race followed rural, lightly traveled roads. Each covered bridge had it’s own character and were well kept.

The volunteers were super nice and the police were especially supportive, blaring the radio, encouraging runners, and managing traffic. The finish line had great music and awesome food, including burgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, apples and oranges.

In fact, the smell of the grill inspired my final kick to the end of the race, where Sarah and I enjoyed a nice stretch and gentle adjustment from Rob, the local chiropractor.

I snacked on a post-race double burger–mmm!

And to top it off, I won a tin of local maple syrup for placing in my age group!

Swanzey is only a few miles away from the border of New Hampshire and Vermont. So we loaded up and headed to Brattleboro, VT to run downtown.

Andy parked himself at a cool little bar, called Whetstone Station, overlooking the river and waited for us to finish.

Sarah and I ran our recovery mile through the main street of Brattleboro passing a cool bike shop, dispensary (since marijuana is now legal here), and other cute shops before meeting Andy for some post-workout beer and killer homemade potato chips (hello, recovery nutrition!).

It was a beautiful day, so the outdoor patio was packed.

We enjoyed some serious people watching, from tattooed bikers to green-haired hippies. We certainly added to the scenery in our sweaty running clothes. And to top it all off, we got to straddle the New Hampshire/Vermont border in the restaurant!

Don’t miss our future adventures in the #50StateChallenge, so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Got any suggestions of local races, places or cool things to do in other states? Let us know!