Peanut Butter Chip Chase gets iced!

Well, actually just snowed on in a big way! Once again, Heather and me along with my parents headed to the little town of Temple, New Hampshire in the Monadnock Highlands to partake in the annual Peanut Butter Chip Chase 5K New Years Day Run. We've been attending this great little race now for the past four years. After a long streak of running the Hangover Classic as my New Year's Day Race, I decided to change races after the Hangover Classic changed courses.

What was once run over nice countryside in Salisbury, Mass was moved to Salisbury Beach. Salisbury Beach to put it mildly can best be described by Morrissey in his song "Everyday is like Sunday," in the line about the coastal town that they forgot to bomb! Salisbury Beach is a pit and just not my idea of New England quaint and cute. Temple, New Hampshire however is a picture-perfect village and a great place to start off the New Years.

This year's Peanut Butter Chip Chase was the 30th and my 15th New Years Day race back in New England since moving to Washington in 1989. Now I've run these races in 10 degrees, 20 degrees, 30 degrees, and even a balmy 40 degrees. I've run in wind chills of zero, on roads frosted in ice and heaved by the cold. Have run after snow, ice and rain. But this year was the first time I got to race in a snow storm! What a treat! A good 2 inches must have fallen just in the 26 minutes it took me to complete this 5K.

The course is a tough one without the snow, climbing 200 feet in the first one mile. But this year it was exceptionally challenging. Running uphill in powder snow is like running up a sand dune, only colder! Running downhill was fun-but I couldn't see half the time with a frosted face! Anyhow, it was a race to remember. Over 130 people attended and once again race director and former Washington resident Bill Moore and the Souhegan Lions Club did a great job. We'll be back again next year rain or shine, snow, sleet or heat!

(photos- Runners at the finish of the race and Heather at the beginning of the race)