Trail Hound

Runs of October

 Trail Hound is taking a break from geocaching this week.  Instead, here's a look at touring by relay racing.

On this sunny and crisp first Saturday of October, 68 teams of variously talented outdoor enthusiasts competed in the 8^th annual Blackstone River Valley UniBank Greenway Challenge, a 57.7-mile multi-sport relay highlighting the scenic byways between Grafton, Mass. and northern Rhode Island.  The course had seven segments including road and mountain biking, paddling down the Blackstone River, and running on streets, trails and the Blackstone River Bikeway. 

 Most teams assigned different members to each leg, but a few hardy ironpersons ran/biked/paddled the whole course themselves.  The competition was friendly, corporate and political rivalries were pleasantly pursued, and the finish-line party at the Kelly House Museum meadow along the river in Lincoln, R.I. made for a mellow afternoon.  Although the relay course covered some major roads, no drivers complained.

 The race reminded me of another fall event that used to take place on Cape Cod.  During the 1970s and 1980s, the Plymouth Rock to Provincetown Relay, organized by the venerable North Medford Club, pitted running clubs from across the Northeast against each other and the unpredictable Cape Cod elements.  The relay wasn't even a charity event back then:  we ran for the bragging rights and excellent camaraderie.  Runners took off from Plymouth Rock at the crack of dawn and passed the baton over the Sagamore Bridge and along 6A to finish throughout the afternoon in an ongoing celebration behind Conwell Lumber on Shank Painter Road.  No segment was much shorter than 6 miles and some were as long as 15.

Discovering the bayside villages by foot in those cool, quieter days of October is one of my fondest memories.  Even the time it rained so hard that the underpass flooded beneath the railroad trestle in Barnstable, near the start of my 9-mile leg to Brewster, was the source of stories retold for years.

The Plymouth to Provincetown Relay moved to Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. in 1988 when the Barnstable chief of police refused to let runners pass through town. The New Hampshire towns have made a successful go of it for 20 years, just one more influx of tourists during an already busy leaf-peeping season.

It's a shame that Cape Codders are reluctant to share the road.  Recent protests over the inconvenience caused by the Pan Mass Challenge, a cycling event that raises serious money to combat cancer, are the latest shots fired in this ongoing conflict. It's too bad that for a short time on a weekend we can't let people have a healthy adventure, discover new sites - and add a few more dollars to the tourist trade - not to mention support worthy charitable causes.

 If you yearn to experience the challenge and fun of a distance relay event, The Blackstone Valley and Lake Winnipesaukee welcome you with open arms. If your Cape Cod roots really run deep and you seek to avoid this onslaught of humanity... well, you know the back roads.

Happy trails.

Photos, from top:

Blackstone River, between Lincoln and Cumberland, R.I.

Runner from team Victorious Secrets finishes the Greenway Challenge

Team Bums relax at the finish after monitoring the mountain biking segment