Newtown Runners Reach The Beach

By Nancy K. Crevier

“Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail….”

Karen Macknight is fired up. She and 11 of her Newtown running cohorts successfully tackled the Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire the weekend of September 16–18. Reach the Beach Relay benefits New Hampshire state parks, and is a 200-mile course that teams of 6 to 12 runners traverse over a 24-hour period.

“We all did phenomenal!” she exclaims. “We placed 130 out of 285 teams, and did it in 29 hours.”

 Twenty-nine rather wet hours, that is. Rain poured down on the runners from 9 Friday night until early Saturday morning. Says Ms Macknight, “It wasn’t so bad. We had the messy van. We had the ‘wet seat,’ the first seat of the van. When you got in you had to sit there until you were dry and quit sweating. The whole time there were two or three pair each of wet sneakers lining the floor; very fragrant….”

 The Long Way Home team did as well as they had expected, particularly since none of the team members had run together before. Says Ms Macknight, “The hardest thing is having your team and maintaining it. People drop out, new ones join. We actually picked up another runner for our team just the Tuesday before the run.”

 Fellow Newtowners Greg Ritzinger and Dan Germain also had a successful outing at the relay. Their team, The Road Warriors, placed 33rd, finishing in just over 27 hours, reports Ms Macknight.

 Will the Long Way Home runners hit the trail next year? “We’ve already decided we’re doing it next year,” Ms Macknight claims. “It was so much fun. We had 12 people in a van for 30 hours and everyone was so nice and supportive. Once you do it once and have a positive time of it, I think that’s it….”