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I needed to get back into my marathon schedule after taking nearly a year off (Philly, then a broken toe that took forever to heal. So I ramped up, partially at least, with a runs of 15, 18 and 20, and looked for a run 3 weeks out. I wanted something close due to hectic schedules.

I decided to drive the 2 hours down to Keene and take advantage of race-day registration, something I've never done before. I had looked at the course and elevation description, and it didn't look too bad. And it was Net Downhill.

Note: when a marathon says "net downhill" this mean that there are many vicious hills tempered with nice long gradual declines.

There were a bunch of the 50 State-ers that I recognized who were doing the Bristol and Keene NH back to back.

I was going to run the 4 and 1 Galloway, and I noticed a couple doing the same. They were actually doing a 3 and 1 then a 4 and 1 and I tried that for a while,and stuck with them till 7. I was running 9'30's or so, so I changed it to 4/30 5/30 and that worked for a while.

The first 10 miles are very pretty, rolling down, following a river. The mile 11 hill took it all out of me. The hill at 22 required pitons.

My splits weren't too bad through 16, but got bad quickly.

This is a very hard, and hilly course. Pretty, but very hard.